


Earth Through The Looking Glass.

by steeleye



Series: After The First Won. [8]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 47,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: The Terran Alliance didn't need any more enemies; so when the Goa'uld turned up the Alliance got ready to 'nuke them from orbit'. But things are never really that simple.
Series: After The First Won. [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556119
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Earth Through The Looking Glass.  
By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate SG1, I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** Buffyverse/Stargate SG1, very much an alternate reality.

 **Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English (the original and best) which is different to US-English.

 **Timeline:** Seasons One through Five for Stargate and about a month after the events depicted in my story, 'Starbase 17'.

 **Words:** Seventeen chapters of about 2500 words.

 **Warnings:** Fire on the waters, fire high above, Fire in our hearts for the friends that we love. Fire, fire, fire down below, Fetch a bucket of water boys, There’s fire down below!

 **Summary:** The Terran Alliance didn't need any more enemies; so when the Goa'uld turned up the Alliance got ready to 'nuke them from orbit'. But things are never really that simple.

0=0=0=0

**Market day, Janestown, Leia IV.**

The small town of Janestown (population 4294) lay at the end of the newly completed monorail two-hundred-and-fifty miles north and east of Springfield (population 36,851), the capital city of Leia IV. The town stood on the southern most edge of the Great Northern Forest and exported lumber, farm produce and bored young women who'd grown tired of watching the south end of a north bound plough mammoth. Most of these young women eventually found themselves joining one of the branches of the Terran Alliance armed forces having found that even the 'great metropolis' of Springfield had little to offer them by way of excitement.

No, life on Leia IV and in Janestown in particular was pretty dull, nothing really ever happened there and it seemed that the only claim to fame for the planet was the 'Great Stone Ring' in the market square of Janestown. When the planet had been first colonised by women from Earth (Leia IV had escaped the attention of any of the demonic races that had colonised this part of the galaxy along with their human slaves) no one had initially noticed the strange stone circle and it wasn't until Janestown was founded some one-hundred years ago that scientists came to investigate this enigmatic artefact and the few ruins that remained around it.

Unable to discover the true purpose to the circle, archaeologists had classified it as a 'Religious Object'; probably put there by one of the demon races who must have tried to colonise the planet some time in the past. For some reason, the investigators decided, the demons left before they'd made a success of their colony. Now the only monument to their arrival and (no doubt) hurried, departure from Leia IV was the circle, the stones from the ruins having long ago been incorporated into the new human settlement. The inhabitants of Janestown were more than a little proud of 'their' circle and every few years or so a new batch of scientists arrived to study it only to leave several months later. The archaeologists would be no wiser about the circle and a lot poorer having been 'fleeced' by the deceptively 'simple' locals.

The circle stood tall and proud on a stone pedestal right in the middle of the market square. To be honest the locals didn't pay it very much heed (unless there were gullible scientists attempting to discover its origins and purpose) it was just something in the background of their lives like the great forests that grew only a few miles north of the town. However, all that would change one cloudy April market day.

0=0=0=0

Walking arm in arm with her wife, Mayu, Megan Bethdottir kept a wary eye on their children as they ran between the market stalls. Not that she was frightened that anything untoward would befall them; there was next to no crime in Janestown, the Sheriff had little to do other than locking up a few drunks on market days. No, Megan was more concerned that her children might annoy one of the stallholders. The two women owned a farm to the west of Janestown and raised cattle plus some vegetable crops all of which they sold for transport to the capital, the new monorail had really boosted the local economy and their income since it had been completed.

“Come an' look at this,” Mayu called; she was standing in front of a stall that sold 'new' labour saving electrical food processors.

“What is it?” Megan asked sceptically.

“It chops up fruit and vegetables,” her wife informed her.

“Can't you do that with a knife?” Megan asked but didn't get to hear her wife's no doubt 'cutting' reply because something had distracted her.

“What's that?” Mayu said as the ground began to tremble under her feet, “Children!” she called, “Come to Mama!”

Obediently the five children of the Bethdottir clan scurried over to stand with their mothers.

“What's going on?” Megan wanted to know as all around her people looked about themselves trying to discover what was causing the ground to shake, the town had never experienced even minor seismic activity in all the time humans had lived there.

Moments later all eyes turned towards the stone circle as its inner section started to spin backwards and forwards and some of the symbols around its edge began to light up. Eventually the ring inside the circle stopped and what looked like a water spout burst from the centre of the circle with a loud 'WHOOSH!'. Cries of alarm issued from the throats of several spectators as the crowd edged nervously away from the circle. Megan’s hand moved slowly towards the butt of the revolver on her hip as she turned to her wife.

“Take the kids and go back to Maddy,” Megan said urgently; seeing the look in her wife's eyes Mayu didn't argue, she simply gathered her girls together and started to heard them towards where they'd left the family's riding mammoth.

“Be careful,” Mayu called over her shoulder as she made her way through the crowd; a lot of other people had had the same idea and mothers and children where heading away from the suddenly active circle.

Over to her left Megan saw Sheriff White and two of her constables pushing their way towards the front of the crowd. Drawing her weapon, she checked that it was loaded before slipping it back into its holster. Looking back at the circle she now saw that there appeared to be a pool of water which stood at an impossible ninety degrees to the level of the market square. For a moment Megan wondered if there was some sort of energy field holding back a sea and when it failed they'd all be drowned as the waters flooded the town.

Instead of water a tall figure in grey armour carrying some sort of staff stepped out of the vertical pool. The figure had to be nearly eight feet tall as it wore a strange snake's head helmet on its head. At first, Megan thought this must be some new kind of demon come to invade her homeworld. Well, she told herself, if that was so then the demons wouldn't find Leia IV an easy conquest and once Star Force, the Marines and the Army arrived the demons would regret the day they'd emerged from their slime pits. Like almost every one else in the market square, Megan drew and cocked her weapon. Leia IV was still a dangerous world and something like ninety-nine-percent of the population owned some form of firearm and about seventy-five-percent of people in rural areas habitually carried them at all times. 

Before the lone figure could be riddled with holes it was joined by half-a-dozen others, all dressed in the same grey armour and carrying the strange staffs that Megan had decided must be some kind of weapon. By now the crowd had backed away from the circle, not out of fear but to give others further to the rear of the crowd a clearer shot at the invaders. Woman-kind generally had a 'shoot first and ask questions later' attitude to demonic incursions. In fact the only thing that was preventing these invaders from being mowed down was the slim possibility that they might be human. Another, much loader gasp arose from the crowd as the grey giant nearest the front of the group opened it's helmet’s visor and looked out over the crowd.

“A male!?” Megan gasped being close enough to the circle to have a clear view of the armed and armoured man who gazed arrogantly out at the locals.

The only men that Megan and indeed most of the inhabitants of Janestown had ever seen where one of the half dozen man-beasts kept in the cages behind the sheriff's office for breeding purposes.

“DON'T ANYONE SHOOT ANYTHING!” called the sheriff as she and her two constables stepped forward to confront this obviously dangerous male, “Just what the feck...” began the sheriff only to be interrupted by the man.

“ALL KNEEL AND TREMBLE BEFORE THE GREAT GOD APOPHIS!” the man's voice was obviously enhanced because it made Megan's diaphragm vibrate in her chest.

“Apophis?” Megan and about half the crowd muttered; the only 'god' that anyone here would kneel to was 'The Goddess, Mother of All' and then only on special occasions; the humans of Leia IV didn't believe in grovelling to gods (it gave the god’s ideas above their station) and a god you couldn't look in the eye wasn't worth worshipping anyway.

As these thoughts and others concerned with why no one had shot this jerk yet went through her mind, Megan watched as yet another male-like character, this time dressed in gold armour, stepped from the ring of stone. This man didn't wear a helmet and his glowing eyes were clearly visible to anyone looking in his direction. It was as if a signal had been given; as one woman everyone in the market square raised their weapons and opened fire!

Within seconds the square was full of gunsmoke and the sound of firing. About half the invaders went down at the first volley. Still firing at the invaders as more of them appeared out of the circle, Megan turned over a market stall and took cover behind it where she reloaded her revolver. The locals, however, weren't having everything their own way. As Megan had suspected the staffs the invaders carried were weapons that fired what was probably bolts of white hot plasma. The sheriff and her constables had been amongst the first to be hit even as the first invaders were cut down. But there always seemed to be more invaders coming through the stone circle and now the women of Janestown had lost the element of surprise, the invaders were moving away from circle as they shot down the defenders in increasing numbers.

“TIME TO LEAVE!” Megan called to the three or four other women who'd joined her behind the now burning table, “Leave this to the military...”

Crawling away from the burning table, Megan made her way down a side street hoping all the time that Mayu had got the kids back to Maddy the Mammoth and were heading for the farm.

0=0=0=0

**A Hydra Assault Shuttle high above Leia IV.**

“What I can't understand, Staff Summers,” Lieutenant Miller called, “is why we don't just let the Reluctant's mass drivers deal with these demons, or nuke them from orbit?”

“Collateral damage, El-tee,” Dawn sighed heavily as she replied to her new platoon leader's question, “most of the town's still intact, so it'd look real bad if we totally wiped it offa the face of the planet.

It had been a pure coincidence that the Terrain Alliance Star Ship Reluctant had been in the area when Leia IV's planetary government had asked for Star Force help to eject the demons now attacking the planet through what sounded suspiciously like a Stargate. The Terran Alliance had never come across Stargates before the Tyrell Corporation and Wolfram and Hart had started to use them to resupply their efforts in taking over the planet of Novalba. The Reluctant had destroyed all five Stargates that had been positioned on that planet and it was believed that no more existed, at least not in the area controlled by the Alliance and its allies.

Of course they'd been wrong. A search of Alliance data-bases had eventually turned up the existence of another Stargate on Leia IV. Even as the Reluctant sped towards the planet a search was being conducted in all computer libraries through-out the Alliance and its allied worlds for anything that remotely sounded like it might be a Stargate. Even with the Reluctant already on course for Leia IV it had taken them almost five days to take up station above the planet. In that time the Stargate which had remained dormant for hundreds, if not thousands, of years suddenly burst into life and deposited armed and armoured demons who'd immediately set about killing or enslaving the local population.

The local militia estimated that there were at least five thousand demon soldiers on Leia IV and although the local forces were holding them in and around the town of Janestown, the local troops weren't trained or equipped to force them back through the gate without suffering horrendous casualties. There was also the possibility that the alien demons might whistle up their own starships. If this was allowed to happen the aliens would be able to destroy Leia IV's home defence forces from orbit.

Not that the forty Terran Alliance Marines in the five Hydra shuttles heading towards the surface could defeat five thousand plus demons (although they'd give it a damn good try if so ordered) all by themselves. No, Dawn and her girls had been ordered to take and hold the enemy Stargate and prevent any-more enemy reinforcements getting through while the rest of the Reluctant's Task Force arrived and deployed Marine and Army units strong enough to destroy the aliens.

“Well,” Lt Miller muttered, “I think its just too bad...”

“Yes Ma'am,” Dawn agreed; given the choice she'd rather let the Reluctant pulverise the area so she and her Marines would only need to sweep up the bits of demon left over after all the fires had gone out.

As it was, she was about to make an assault landing against a foe who she knew little about while under the command of a brand new platoon leader who still had her mother's milk on her lips. It did seem to Dawn that she was getting through an awful lot of officers either killed or wounded. On the plus side it had meant that she'd been confirmed in her new rank of Staff Sergeant. This meant she could command the platoon without interference when her officer inevitably bought the farm or maybe just bought a couple of fields.

“Okay people, listen up,” Dawn called over her platoon net; her voice would be heard by everyone aboard the five shuttles heading at supersonic speed towards the surface of the planet. “Four minutes to landing; remember we secure the el-zee before we head for the Stargate which should be about five-hundred yards dead north of us.” Dawn paused to let that sink in before speaking again; by rights the El-Tee should be telling everyone this, but, Miz Miller hadn't seemed about to say anything so Dawn took it upon herself to give the last minute briefing and ego boost, “We expect heavy resistance, but our suits should protect us from the worst their plasma guns can do...”

Before launching the mission the Reluctant's armourers had given each Marine Power Armour suit a coating of ablative heat resistant paste while at the same time beefing up the suit's cooling systems. Plasma weapons didn't have much in the way of penetrative power, but they could heat up a suit sufficiently to cause the wearer to be badly burnt or even killed.

“...so, lets do it by the numbers an' on the bounce. The people of Leia IV are relying on us to kick these assholes clear offa their planet...Semper Fi by Star and Land!”

As soon as Dawn had finished speaking, someone else started to sing, it was kind of a tradition in the platoon to sing the Alliance anthem before going into action. The Marines had another song for when they pulled out of a combat.

0=0=0=0

Why not sing along with the Band of the US Navy while Dawn and her girls head for the surface of Leia IV and all those nasty Jaffa, (highlight and right click to follow the link)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8AcsNAyXxM

_United forever in friendship and labour,  
Our mighty Alliance will ever endure.  
The Terran Alliance will live through the ages.  
The dream of her people their fortress secure. _

_Long live our Terran motherland,  
Built by the people's mighty hand.  
Long live our people, united and free.  
Strong in our friendship tried by fire.  
Long may our Terran flag inspire,  
Shining in glory for all there to see._

Gives ya goosebumps don't it!

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

**Janestown, Leia IV.**

“GO! GO! GO!” Dawn yelled as she stood in the now opened main hatch of the Hydra.

It was her job to ensure that all the Marines in the craft jumped and took all their equipment with them. Only after she'd checked to see that no one and nothing had been left behind would she leap out of a perfectly good shuttle and let angry people shoot at her; no wonder the nerve of a Terran Marine failed her sometimes. Standing there as the slipstream tugged at her suit, Dawn watched as first the M60A2 crew leapt from the Hydra and plummeted towards the planet's surface loaded down with the platoon's multi-barreled machine gun and its ammunition. Next came the automatic mortar and its crew followed almost immediately by the crew of the Viper missile launcher. It was only after the missile launcher crew had jumped that Dawn noticed that Miz Miller hadn't jumped. Normally the platoon leader would be first out, Dawn hadn't really noticed the officer not going through the hatch because, quite frankly, she had more important things on her mind and officers just jumped, they didn't need to be checked on, it was like a law of nature.

“What's wrong, El-tee?” Dawn wanted to know as she stepped away from the hatch.

“Erm...” Miz Miller hesitated before saying, “...there's something wrong with my grav-pack!”

“Here let me look...” Dawn stepped over to the officer and flipped open the inspection flap on the back of Miller's grav-pack, all the indicator lights glowed green, “...looks okay to me.”

Not waiting for an answer, Dawn heaved her officer towards the hatch and helped her be a hero by the judicious use of her armoured boot. Watching for a second, Dawn saw Miller tumble towards the surface before stepping out into nothing and heading towards the ground at more or less terminal velocity. The shuttle was only about five-hundred feet up, but a power-armour suit was heavy and soon picked up speed.

Watching her altimeter as the numbers blurred in their hurry to go by, Dawn waited for just the right moment before activating her grav-pack. There was a sickening lurch as she suddenly decelerated and started to descend at a more sedate speed. It was only now that she noticed all the plasma bolts flashing passed her face, easing off on the power to her grav-pack, Dawn once again dropped like a stone until she was only about twenty feet above the ground. Unslinging her M-Tar assault rifle she checked that it was loaded and the safety was off before dropping the last few feet to the surface of the planet.

It was now that Dawn realised that this wasn't going to be a good day. The delay caused by having to woman-fully throw her platoon leader out of the shuttle meant that she was just a little further north of the el-zee than she should be. First and Second sections had dropped first and secured the landing zone while the invaders were still stunned from the Reluctant's preliminary bombardment. However, the invaders had recovered quickly and were now attacking the Marine perimeter in increasing numbers. Dawn could see all this from the feeds she was receiving from the recon drones dropped by the Reluctant and the warship's own sensors.

“Hello, one-one this is nine alpha, over...” Dawn called over her comms as she ran for the cover of someone's back yard.

“One-one receiving, over...” came the reply about a second later.

“Lilly!” Dawn replied discarding proper comms procedure, “I'm totally in the crap as soon as the bad-guys work out where I am...” Dawn smashed through a wooden fence and took cover behind a flowering shrub, “...I'm about one-hundred yards north and east of you location...”

“I see you Staff,” Lilly Brooks the corporal commanding first section replied, “we'll get to you asap.”

“Have you seen anything of Miz Miller?” Dawn wanted to know, “She had a malfunction on her grav-pack which meant we both jumped late, I can't see her on my head-up.”

“Got nothin' Staff,” Lilly replied, “keep ya head down, we'll come get ya.”

“Roger that, Nine-Alpha out!” Dawn said as she looked around the deserted back yard and gave a low chuckle, “Keep my head down?” again she laughed, “That's like _sooo_ not the Summers way!”

Standing up and stepping from behind the shrub she saw the invader soldier before he saw her. Squeezing off half a magazine she watched the M-Tar's armour piecing bullets rip through the man's archaic looking armour before he fell to the ground. Moving towards the downed man, Dawn came face to face with three more invader soldiers. They all wore the same armour as her first victim and they all pointed their cumbersome looking staff weapons at her. They fired almost at the same time that she did, the only difference being that she hit all her targets while only one of their plasma bolts hit her.

“OWWW!” Dawn cried as the armour over her left boob heated up and some of the ablative paste ablated off; within seconds her suit's cooling system had lowered the temperature to some where near normal and her suit's med-systems had injected her with a mild pain killer. “Crap!” Dawn swore as she swapped her empty magazine for a full one, “Gotta be more carefully.”

No sooner had she said the words than half a dozen more invaders came into view and started to shoot at her. Plasma bolts flashed and flew by her head as she dived for cover. Rolling over until she was hidden by a section of undamaged fence, Dawn brought her M-Tar into a firing position. Using the weapon's thermal imaging sight she aimed at the invaders through the fence and fired off a three round burst at each target. The rounds sparked and punched their way through the invader's armour and bodies, Dawn watched them fall in untidy heaps in the dust.

Jumping to her feet, Dawn decided to use a little power and go juice to shift her position. Activating her grav-pack and firing off her jets she skimmed across the ground never more than a couple of feet above the surface and at about twenty miles an hour. Flying around the corner of the house who's back yard she'd been hiding in, Dawn was confronted by an entire platoon of invader soldiers. Going into reverse, Dawn blazed away with the M-Tar in her right hand while she tossed grenades with her left.

One again plasma blots flashed through the air towards her only missing her by fractions of an inch. Her own bullets made a 'scrap iron' like sound as they punched through the enemy's armour while her grenades made flat, sharp, bangs as they exploded and sprayed the area with a lethal shower of razor sharp high velocity shrapnel. Feeding more power to her grav-pack and expending just a little more go juice, Dawn flew upwards, before heading off at high speed towards a more substantial looking brick built building about fifty yards to her left front. Coming in for a rather bouncy landing on the building's roof, Dawn crouched down and took a moment to take stock of her position.

“Thank the Goddess these assholes are crap shots,” Dawn told herself as she swapped her magazines around; she still had plenty of ammo for her M-Tar but she'd used up about a third of her supply of grenades.

Checking the map projected onto the face plate of her helmet, Dawn could see the general situation quite clearly. The Marines had formed a perimeter and looked as if they were about to start their push towards the enemy's Stargate, which meant... Looking up Dawn saw incredibly bright lines of light appear in the sky and heading towards...her!

“OH CRAP!” Dawn screamed as the world exploded around her, the Reluctant had started its bombardment in support of the Marine' s attack.

The building collapsed beneath her and she found herself tumbling through the pulverised ruins as chunks of brick and timber bounced off her armour.

0=0=0=0

“So much for collateral damage,” Corporal Lilly Brooks muttered under her breath as she led her 'A' team forward.

Three precisely targeted kinetic bolts, fired from the Reluctant's main armament, had completely destroyed the part of Janestown around the Stargate. Luckily the Reluctant's gunnery officer, Lieutenant (SF) Lehane had dialled back on the bolt's velocity so as not to obliterate the entire town and the surrounding farms. Unfortunately, Staff Summers, the de-facto platoon leader (Miz miller the real platoon leader was still nowhere to be found), had been caught in the blast zone. Although Staff Summers' location beacon flashed strong and clear on Lilly's faceplate, she wasn't answering her comms. Being the closest section to Dawn's location, Corporal Hudson (the senior section leader) had sent Lilly and her team forward to find Dawn.

“Spread out,” Lilly called, “don't bunch up and keep your eyes open for Invader soldiers...”

The Marines in Lilly's section were basically 'newbies' and had to be occasionally reminded that they weren't Girl Guides on a nature ramble. The truth was that Lilly had only been made up to corporal a couple of weeks before she'd joined the Reluctant; Staff Summers had taken her under her wing, she seemed to see something in Lilly that Lilly wasn't sure was actually there. Whatever, the Staff Sergeant had been good to her and her newbies so Lilly would go that extra mile or two for her.

“Movement on the left flank,” reported Marine Sarah Frost.

“How far and how many?” Lilly demanded, “Remember your training, give a proper contact report...”

Almost before Lilly had finished speaking the air became full of flying plasma bolts that whooshed angrily by above her head. Heading for the ground at high speed, Lilly thanked the goddess that the invaders were such terrible shots, however, what they lacked in quality they were certainly making up for in quantity.

“CONTACT LEFT!” Lilly yelled into her comms, “TAKE COVER! WATCH AN' SHOOT!”

Crawling forward so she could see around the chunk of brickwork she'd taken refuge behind, Lilly sighted her M-Tar on a point where she thought one of the grey armoured invaders was hiding. Sure enough, no sooner had she brought her weapon up into a firing position, one of the invaders popped up from behind some rubble and levelled his cumbersome weapon in her direction. Remembering to squeeze the trigger not yank it, Lilly put a three round burst through the invader's chest. The armoured man threw up his arms sending his staff-like weapon pin-wheeling through the air as he fell over backwards and disappeared from Lilly's view. As she looked for another target, she could hear the loud thumping of the team's LAG gunner firing at something. Only a week ago they'd received the new 20mm Light Assault Guns and Lilly suspected her gunner was taking the opportunity to see how effective the new weapon was. Noticing that there wasn't much in the way of return fire, Lilly spoke into her comms again.

“Check-fire, check fire!” she called and the out going fire from her team slowly faded to nothing, “Don't shoot unless you can actually see a target.” Newbies had a tendency to blaze away at shadows until they'd used up all their ammo, “Lets move it, we've still gotta find the staff sergeant, direction, north, ten degrees, distance fifty-five yards lets go!”

Moving across the field of pulverised rock, brick and smashed wood, Lilly considered telling her girls to use their grav packs. But that was something else that needed to be tightly controlled. Grav-packs used power and the thrusters used fuel. A Marine only had so much power and fuel that it needed to be conserved until it would give them a real tactical advantage. However, moving across even the ruins of the town was reasonably easy in their powered suits and they got to the point where Dawn's beacon said she was within a minute.

“Just my luck!” Lilly said to herself, “Frost, Kemp, dig the Staff Sergeant out, Bradbury,” Lilly turned to the Lag gunner, “You're with me on overwatch.”

Moving away from where the two Marines dug through the rubble as they searched for the elusive Staff Summers, Lilly kept a wary eye on her surroundings and the feed she was getting from the recon drone that was flying figure-of-eights about a thousand feet above her. Not for the first time, Lilly wondered how she was supposed to keep track of everything. Information overload was a real danger on the modern battlefield. So much of a danger in fact that she almost didn't notice the platoon sized force of invaders moving towards her position.

As she moved to cover this new threat, a part of Lilly's mind wondered where in the Hellmouth the enemy was getting all these fresh troops. The enemy's perimeter was being pulverized by the Reluctant's main armament and pressed inwards by the rest of the task force's ground elements. The platoon must have killed hundreds of the enemy; so far every time the invaders got into a firefight with the Marines they'd lost. So where were the enemy getting their reinforcements? They seemed to be appearing out of thin air!

“CONTACT!” Lilly called into her comms, “NOW! My two o'clock, one-hundred yards, beings in open am engaging!”

Before she'd finished saying the word 'engaging', Lilly was sending carefully aimed three round bursts at the lead invaders. Watching in satisfaction as the first invaders fell, her rounds sparking against their armour, Lilly was surprised to see one of the attackers explode in a welter of blood, body parts and armour. Pausing, she turned her head to see Marine Bradbury firing her Lag steadily into the enemy formation. It seemed that each time one of the Lag's 20mm shells hit a target it simply exploded scattering the invader to the four winds. 

“Keep it up, Bradbury!” Lilly called as she turned back to engage the targets Bradbury had missed.

As she fired, Lilly told herself that these invaders weren't very good soldiers. When shot at they just kept coming, they'd obviously never heard of fire and movement or even taking cover. No their one tactic seemed to be to charge at an enemy. This was alright in Lilly's book, as long as she had ammo the invaders could run into her kill zone as often as they wanted.

“Corporal,” Kemp's voice came to Lilly's ears, “We've found the Staff Sergeant, she's alive but dazed.”

“Okay,” Lilly changed her magazine, the invaders were still advancing but about half of them were down and out of the battle, “pick her up and take her back to the rest of the section, Katie an' myself will watch ya rear.”

“Roger that,” Kemp replied.

“Hello one-two, this is one-one,” Lilly called to Corporal Hudson, “we've retrieved Nine-alpha and we're taking her back to zero-one's location, request medic, over.”

“One-two, roger that one-one, medic on her way,” Corporal Hudson sounded relieved, “how's she look, over.”

“One-one, her armour's a bit dented an' she's dazed, but her life signs are strong, over.”

“One-two. Cool, I can't say I'll be sorry when I can hand the platoon back to her, out.”

Lilly's comms went dead and she started to leap-frog backwards with Marine Bradbury. Each time the invaders tried to press forward, Lilly and Katie punished them for their recklessness. Very soon there were no more invaders left to attack them, although Lilly had a feeling that more invaders would appear very soon from goddess knew where. Using a little power and fuel, Lilly and Katie used their grav-packs and arrived at the section's position just as Frost and Kemp dumped Staff Summers behind a wall where the Star Force medic could look her over.

“Oh my head,” Dawn groaned as the medic took off her helmet, as she examined Dawn for any serious head trauma, “I think a building fell on me...”

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

“Here they come again!” someone called as the stargate burst into life again and half-a-dozen 'flash balls' bounced down the steps of the plinth on which the stargate stood.

The so-called 'flash balls' were mostly harmless, Dawn suspected that they were designed to daze and disorientate, but apart from making everyone's face plate turn dark and mess with comms for a few seconds they didn't appear to do very much. Looking over the rough barricade of stone and brickwork her Marines had thrown up, Dawn saw the first of the invader soldiers appear firing their weird staff guns as they burst from the gate.

“Hold fire!” Dawn ordered as the invaders swarmed through the gate to fill the area in front of it.

The gate had been in the middle of the town plaza, but now there was no sign of the neat cobblestoned square or indeed most of the surrounding buildings. Everything had been smashed up by the Reluctant's bombardment and the following air-strikes. The invaders, however, kept coming until the area in front of the Marine positions was packed with troops.

“IN COMING!” Dawn called as she ducked back into cover.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than two army Skyraiders flew in low over her position and dropped canisters of Super Napalm on the grey clad horde. The long silver canisters tumbled towards the ground to explode into red and black billowing flame that incinerated the enemy force turning them to ash. Just as the flames started to die down the high pressure oxygen bottles that had been inside the canisters exploded and the world burst into renewed flame hot enough that Dawn could feel the heat through her armour and behind her stone bulwark.

Super napalm was generally ineffective to a woman wearing power armour. The armour was a sealed unit and designed to protect the wearer from a nuclear blast (as long as you weren't caught directly under a bomb) so simple flame had no real effect. The same couldn't be said about the invaders, their armour didn't even have proper helmets, Dawn had noted that although some wore big, ornate helmets in the shape of a serpent's head, the majority only wore a simple metal skullcap.

The invaders engulfed in the napalm were the lucky ones, they died instantly, it was the ones one the periphery of the fire storm that died in agony, cooked inside their armour. Switching off the microphones on the outside of her suit so she couldn't hear their screams, Dawn ordered her Marines not to fire. They were too low on ammo to waste rounds on targets that were already dead, besides if these assholes didn't want to be roasted in their armour they should have stayed at home.

“Second wave coming through,” Corporal Hudson called from over on the right flank.

Raising her head above the parapet, Dawn saw the second wave of invaders coming through the gate, not for the first time Dawn wondered how many troops the enemy had on the other side of that damn gate. Whoever was in charge didn't seem to care about casualties as they just kept sending more troops through, this had to be the ninth or tenth attack that they'd destroyed and yet the enemy still kept coming. What was more they used the same tactics (if you could call them that) every time. First would come the flash balls which did little more than warn the defenders that yet another wave of enemy troops was one the way. Next would come the invaders themselves yelling and firing their staff guns wildly in all directions.

“Okay people,” Dawn said calmly as more and more invaders appeared from the gate to stumble across the field of blackened corpses that littered the area in front of the portal, “All groups,” Dawn began to give her fire order, “range one-hundred, enemy to the front...” by now there had to be two-hundred invaders spreading out in front of the gate, “...rapid FIRE!”

On the order 'fire' the Marines opened up and the invader formation (such as it was) started to melt away as armour piercing rounds ripped through the poor protection of the invader's armour to kill the men inside. Once more Dawn witnessed the superiority of the Terran Marine over these alien soldiers, she also wondered why they never seemed to even attempt to take cover or try to retreat back through the stargate. The best answers she'd come up with was that the invaders were either too stupid or too arrogant to try and take cover and that the reason they didn't try to retreat through the stargate was because they couldn't.

Back on Earth in her own time, Dawn had watched a couple of episodes of 'Stargate SG1' with Xander. To be honest she'd not really been paying very much attention to the TV show; she'd only pretended to be watching because she'd had a pretty major schoolgirl crush on Xander Harris at the time. But what she did remember appeared to fit in with what she was seeing now; somehow she was defending a town on a planet hundreds of light years away from Earth against characters out of a TV show...there had to be something cock-eyed about the universe if this was happening. But, for the time being she wouldn't worry about that, instead she'd worry about getting as many of her girls through this while killing as many of the enemy as she could.

“Cease fire!” Dawn ordered as the last few invaders (Dawn wished she could remember what they'd been called in the show, she was sure it was something to do with oranges) died and fell to the corpse packed ground, a couple of seconds later the gate closed down. “Okay, section leaders check and redistribute ammo, get the wounded to the rear and if you're not doing anything else build those barricades higher!”

So far Dawn had lost three of her girls KIA and five WIA, which effectively meant she was down to three out of four sections. What was more worrying, at least for their immediate survival was that the platoon was running low on ammo. The missile team had fired off all their missiles and the mortar team had long ago expended all their bombs. The M60A2 was down to around a thousand rounds, enough to keep it firing for about a minute at its lowest rate of fire. On average each Marine had about one-hundred rounds for her M-Tar and the Lag gunners had about twenty rounds each. Sure the Reluctant's shuttles had dropped ammo, power packs and medical supplies but there never enough bullets to go around. Luckily everyone was well into the green with power so no suits would be breaking down at just the wrong moment.

“Here they come...again!” someone called and once more Dawn raised her head.

Once again a bunch of flash balls were thrown out of the gate to explode harmlessly short of the Marine positions. This time when the invaders (once again Dawn wished she could remember their proper name) burst from the gate they seemed to have some other purpose other than to be decimated by the Marine's fire. It looked like they were trying to get to the odd circular control device that stood at a drunken angle in amongst the corpse strewn ruins about twenty yards away from the gate.

Why the hell they were doing this Dawn couldn't fathom, but it made them easy targets so she ordered her Marines to open up using single shots and watched as the Invaders...suddenly the name for the invaders popped in her mind. The Jaffa's (there she knew it had something to do with oranges) came on despite their casualties and Dawn started to worry that this last group would use up her last few rounds; she needed to do something new. As if someone was reading her mind, movement over to her left caught her eye.

“Come on!,” Corporal Sakura Airi's broad Scottish accent came through the comms to Dawn's ears, “intae 'em...gae 'em ra col steel!”

Looking over to the left, Dawn watched as fourth section rose from their positions brandishing a collection of sharpened entrenching tools, combat knives and one honest to goddess sword! The Marines flew at the Jaffas and crashed into them cutting the enemy down like weeds. Already strong muscles, enhanced by the power armour each girl was wearing, quickly made short work of the Jaffas that stood between them and the control panel.

“First section,” Dawn called urgently into her comms, “move forward and support fourth section, everyone else remain in position and take down any leakers...and watch who you're shooting at.”

The Jaffas were trying to use their staff guns as quarter staffs, but the strength with which fourth section's ad-hoc melee weapons were wielded proved too much. Staffs were chopped in half while Jaffa arms, legs and heads were hacked off. Blood spurted over the ground and over the attacking Marine's armour. For a moment the Jaffa defence appeared to firm up, but then they were hit in the flank by first section and things really fell apart for them.

This time the Jaffa did try to fall back but they couldn't escape the vengeful Marines. It only took a few minutes for the last Jaffa to be hacked down. No sooner had the last invader been killed than the Marines made their way back to their positions, they were too well trained to waste time celebrating their victory out in the open. Particularly when no one knew when the next attack would come. After congratulating Sakura on her show of initiative, Dawn got down behind her cover and started to worry about their lack of ammo again. Relief was supposed to be on the way, but apart from the occasional air-strike she'd seen nothing of the army units who were supposed to be coming to her aid.

After being buried under a house and rescued, Dawn had taken over command of the platoon, there'd still been no sign of Miz Miller and Dawn had resigned herself to writing another letter to a grieving family telling them how their daughter was KIA. Whatever, she'd fought through the town until the platoon was less than one-hundred yards short of the stargate. As she'd no idea (and it has to be said no one else knew what to do) on how to shut the stargate down, short of a broadside from the Reluctant's main armament, she'd ordered her girls into defensive positions and shoot down anyone who stuck their noses through the gate. So far this tactic had worked for the last twelve hours, the only problem was that it looked like it wasn't going to work for very much longer.

“Hello Staff Summers are you receiving, over?” a familiar voice came over Dawn's comms.

“General Kennedy?” Dawn replied, Willow's ex-lover was now forty years older than Willow and a General in the Terran Alliance army.

“The same,” Dawn could hear the smile in the old general's voice, “how y'doin' Dawnie?”

“Tolerable, General, tolerable,” the truth was that Dawn felt like she was one big bruise and she had a headache that her med-unit's pain killer's were only just keeping under control.

“Good to hear, good to hear,” Kennedy replied, “I've been watching you and if you're not very careful I'll be forced to give you a battlefield commission and I know how you feel about not wanting to be an officer.”

“Yes ma'am,” Dawn replied, the threat sounded real, “I promise to screw up big time if you promise not to make me an officer...Warrant Officer would be good though...”

“I'll see what I can do,” Kennedy laughed, “anyway the real reason I called was to let you know that a company of Moosrab Combat Walkers should be at your position in less than fifteen minutes. Can you hold for that long?”

“We can hold for fifteen hours ma'am,” Dawn replied with true Marine bravado.

“Of course you can, I wouldn't expect anything else of you Dawn,” Kennedy replied soberly, “The Green-beans should be coming from the west so don't shoot them up by mistake...” the general paused before adding, “...Warrant Officer huh?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“I'll see what I can do, in the mean time keep your head down and don't get shot, Kennedy out.”

“Movement to the west,” Corporal Hudson called out over the comms.

“Don't engage,” Dawn replied on the platoon channel, “that's the relief force...” a ragged cheer came over the comms, “...they weren't supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes, nice of people to turn up early for a change.”

0=0=0=0

It had been an hour and there hadn't been another attack. The Moosrab had positioned their Combat Walkers (twenty foot tall walking tanks) around the stargate along with their supporting infantry. The Moosrab infantry wore power armoured suits modelled on Terran suits, so the Jaffa were in for a double surprise if the came through the gate again. Dawn had just finished handing off the defence of the stargate to the Moosrab commander, a tall, green skinned, scarlet haired woman with amber, cat-like eyes. When Lieutenant Commander Willow Rosenberg walked over to join her in front of the stargate. Willow was dressed in a Star Force issue hard suit, a sort of armoured vacuum suit that Star Force used in place of power armour.

“Hi Dawnie how's it going?” Willow called happy to see her young friend was still alive and uninjured.

“Fine Ma'am,” Dawn replied with a frown; Willow had this habit of talking to her as if she was still twelve and not the rough, tough Marine combat veteran non-com that she was, to be honest Dawn thought that Willow would still talk to her that way even if she got to be a general (which was never going to happen because Dawn didn't want to be an officer). 

“Wow...” Willow looked up at the stargate, “...you ever get the feeling that the universe is messing with us?”

“Sure do Ma'am,” Dawn replied.

“Oh, don't call me 'ma'am' its me Willow,” Willow said.

“Combat zone, Ma'am,” Dawn replied; she didn't mind generals calling her Dawn or even Dawnie, but mere Lt Commanders...no way, even if she had known Willow for most of her life.

“Oh, okay,” Willow sulked, “I'm losing count of how many things from TV and movies keep popping into our reality.”

“Me too, Ma'am,” Dawn agreed.

“I should have looked into it harder after those 'Aliens' attacked us on Rigal IV,” Willow mused, “But I had other things on my mind.”

“Like rebuilding the Buffy-bot,” Dawn suggested.

“Something like that,” Willow admitted before changing the subject, “so what do you remember about that 'Stargate' show?”

“Not a lot,” Dawn looked down at the carbonised remains of the Jaffa that lay at her feet, “like I know these guys were called 'Jaffa' or something...”

“You sure?” Willow frowned as she nudged a crispy critter with her armoured boot.

“No,” Dawn shook her un-helmeted head, “but its the best I could come up with.”

“I thought they were Jafa...”

“What's an 'ef' between friends?” Dawn gave a power armour shrug.

“An' didn't they have snake things in their bellies?”

“Maybe,” Dawn shrugged again; she'd really not been paying that much attention when Xander had watched those shows with her, she'd been too busy imagining...well, the less said about what she'd been imagining was for the better.

“We need an expert...” Willow announced.

“XANDER!” the two women chorused moments later.

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Janestown, Leia IV.

Shifting uncomfortably in his ill fitting hard suit (it was no good, the armourers had tried their best but men and women were just different shapes), Xander gazed up at the stargate in something close to awe.

“Wow...” he murmured quietly.

“What did he say?” the Moosrab company commander demanded; it was her company of combat walkers that were guarding the gate at this time.

“He said 'Wow', Ma'am,” replied the newly promoted Warrant Officer Class Two Dawn Summers.

“Wow?” the green skinned woman frowned, “What is 'wow'?”

“It's like...” Dawn hesitated as she looked into the stern-faced woman's eyes; it was generally believed that the Moosrab had exterminated all their males hundreds if not thousands of years ago, they simply didn't like males and Dawn suspected that the only reason the good captain hadn't whipped out her phaser and reduced Xander to a smouldering pile of ashes was that she thought she might cause a diplomatic incident. “...I'll explain later.”

The group standing in the rubble before the stargate not only contained Dawn and the Moosrab Captain (a woman called Victoria-KB57TEV), but also Willow and General Kennedy. Around them soldiers from one of the companies of the Connaught Rangers cleared away the bodies of the dead Jaffa while Kennedy's protection detail prowled the ruins looking for any not so dead Jaffa who might try and annoy their general.

“So, what can you tell us about the threat?” Kennedy asked, everyone had their face plates open so there was no need to use comms and run the risk of being overheard.

“Yeah the Goa'uld...” Xander paused and tried to order his thoughts; it'd been quite a while since he'd last seen the show and even then he'd missed a lot of episodes, plus there was the general weirdness of standing in front of a real, live stargate surrounded by the incinerated corpses of dead Jaffa.

“How are their troops organised?” Kennedy suggested a topic for discussion when she saw Xander was struggling to come to terms with the situation.

“Yeah right...” Xander dragged his mind back to the subject in hand, “...from what I can remember there are three types of 'Jaffa'...”

“Go on,” Kennedy encouraged.

“Right,” Xander took a deep breath and immediately wished he hadn't, the smell of burnt meat was quite strong where he was standing, “there's the human troops, they're used as cannon fodder. Then there's the Jaffa, these are like the System Lords' personal troops and then there's the Serpent Guards they're like elite types...”

“System Lords?” Willow asked.

“Yeah they're the guys with snakes in their heads and the glowing eyes,” Xander explained.

“Snakes in their heads?” Captain Victoria- KB57TEV queried.

“Glowing eyes?” Willow wanted to know.

“Oh yeah!” Dawn said brightly, “I remember those...”

“I think it might be an idea if when Xander gets back aboard the Reluctant that he writes a report containing everything he can remember about these Goa'uld and...”

Dawn found herself filtering out what Kennedy was saying, she'd get to read the report later. Looking around her heart swelled with pride, the girls and herself had really done a number on these Jaffa. But on the other hand the Jaffa weren't very good soldiers and they were poorly equipped (no wonder Jack O'Neill and the SGC kept beating them). So far not a trace of any modern comms gear had been found on the dead Jaffa and the only 'heavy weapons' they appeared to have were some scaled up staff guns.

“Why does your General talk to the male?” Victoria- KB57TEV had come to stand next to Dawn and spoke softly to her.

“Because...” Dawn gave an almost interpretable sigh, “...he knows about this stuff.”

“Couldn't you download this knowledge onto a data crystal and shoot the disgusting penis and incinerate the remains?” like all Moosrab, Victoria _really_ didn't like males.

“Because he's a friend,” Dawn replied trying to understand where Victoria was coming from; she also began to wonder what the Moosrab males had done to make the females hate them enough to wipe them out...it couldn't just be because they kept leaving the toilet seat up.

“Friend!?” Victoria shivered in disgust.

“Yeah,” Dawn replied a little more defensively than she'd intended.

“I feel sorry for you humans,” it was Victoria's turn to sigh, “you know, Chief, if you were green you'd be considered as being very attractive...”

“Thanks...I think,” Dawn frowned in reply.

“...but if you want a child you have to couple with...” Victoria gestured at Xander, “...with one of... _those_.”

“Not so much,” Dawn explained, “nowadays you just go to a Family Planning Clinic, put your feet up in the stirrups and a nurse does the business, you don't even have to see the male that donated the...” suddenly Dawn found she was feeling a little embarrassed, “...the...you know...like _stuff_.”

“Stuff...” Victoria gave a superior sniff, “...this stuff still comes from a vile penis not like the Bean of Life.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't work on humans,” Dawn said.

The Moosrab had for centuries protected human colonies within their Confederation and had tried to adapt the Bean of Life (whatever that was exactly) for humans to use, but it had never worked out. To their credit the Moosrab were still trying even after centuries of failure.

“That is why I feel sorry for you,” Victoria said kindly, “such a pretty, intelligent young human like yourself should not be a slave to the penis.”

“Are you coming on to me Ma'am?” Dawn asked, although she'd come to terms that if she wanted a love life it would have to be with another woman, Dawn wasn't sure she was ready to try out inter-species relationships.

“What if I am?” Victoria shrugged, “There's no regulations against it...” the green woman smiled exposing sharp, pointed, white teeth, “...different armies...”

“I'm a Marine,” Dawn pointed out automatically.

“...better,” Victoria's smile got wider, “we could make the alliance between our two peoples closer...more...intermit.”

“Yeah...” Dawn found herself agreeing as pictures of herself and the Moosrab officer in bed together came unbidden to her mind, “...like, totally...”

Banishing all thoughts of inter-species-red-hot-lesbian-monkey-sex from her mind, Dawn concentrated once more on what General Kennedy was saying.

“...is there anything we should look out for about these creatures in the mean time?”

“Yeah!” Xander sounded like he'd remembered something _really_ important, “The larval Goa'uld...”

“What about them?” Willow asked as she took notes on her hand-held computer.

“Look every Jaffa has a larval Goa'uld in his belly...”

“Sounds disgusting,” Victoria whispered to Dawn.

“But not as disgusting as penises, right?” Dawn whispered back with a smirk.

“As you humans say...” Victoria moved closer to Dawn, “...'totally'.”

“...it keeps them super-healthy and helps heal wounds...”

“So?” Willow hesitated as she remembered something, “Hold on I remember this, it makes them harder to kill or something, right?”

“They didn't seem harder to kill when your Marines and Rangers were fighting them,” Victoria pointed out, “and they died easily enough in front our guns...the disgusting, nauseating, vile, worthless, tiny penises!”

“Yeah...right, whatever,” Willow gave the Moosrab officer a worried look; maybe they'd killed all their males because they'd only had tiny penises?

“True,” Xander spoke directly to the alien officer for the first time and noticed her hand move towards the sidearm holstered on her thigh, “but if you're only armed with a spear or something...”

“I think I see where Xander is going with this,” Kennedy said, “these Jaffa normally only fight people with primitive weapons...”

“And if they meet tougher opposition they whistle up these huge starships...” Xander turned back to face Kennedy again, “...you've not seen any 'honking-big' starships around have you?”

“Not so you'd notice, no,” Kennedy replied, “anyway, back to what you were saying about these larval Goa'uld.”

“Right they live in a pouch in the belly of each Jaffa...” Xander explained.

“And this should worry us because...?” Willow wanted to know.

“...well, if the Jaffa is killed the baby Goa'uld will try and find a new home...”

“This sounds bad in general terms,” Kennedy said slowly, “but I'm guessing there's something about this that's even worse?”

“Yeah, you could say that...” Xander watched all the faces as they turned towards him, “...they try to take over the host's body.”

“Like they could totally infiltrate...” Willow stopped typing for a moment as all the consequences of this piece of information popped into her mind, “...like...everything!”

“But you guys should be safe in your armour...” Xander reassured everyone as all eyes turned to Victoria-KB57TEV.

The Moosrab officer was wearing a jumpsuit made out of ballistic cloth and a bright green beret on top of her scarlet curls, her crewer's helmet was back at her command walker. Everyone else present was wearing either a hard-suit or powered armour.

“I'll have the Rangers check for these larvae as they dispose of the bodies,” Kennedy informed everyone.

“Please General,” Captain Victoria-KB57TEV spoke up, “It would be an honour if you allowed my infantry detachment to complete the task.”

“Your people have armoured suits?” Kennedy asked, not all Moosrab infantry had been issued with the Terran style powered armour suits yet.

“Yes General,” Victoria smiled exposing her, sharp, pointed teeth again.

“Be my guest,” Kennedy nodded to the green officer, “I think we've seen enough here. I'm off back to the Reluctant,” Kennedy cocked an eyebrow at Willow, “Lieutenant Commander?”

“I'll be along soon, General, there's still stuff I want to look at,” Willow replied.

“Cool,” Kennedy gave a powered armour shrug before turning away and heading towards her shuttle.

“I better be going too,” Victoria told Dawn as she handed her a computer card, “comms me, that's my private channel,” she smiled once again, exposing her dangerous looking teeth, but this time her smile was even more inviting.

“Yeah, totally,” Dawn took the card and slipped it into one of her ammo pouches, she watched as Victoria-KB57TEV walked away and wondered if she was green all over.

0=0=0=0

“Dawnie's got a girlfriend,” Willow teased in a sing-song voice.

“Have not!” Dawn snapped back defensively.

“Have too!” Willow sounded like a ten year old and not the starship science officer that she was, “If this wasn't a combat zone that Green-bean would've been ripping your armour off and...”

“Okay,” Dawn gave up trying to defend her feelings, “I admit it I do find her weirdly attractive an' maybe I'd totally like to see if she's green all over...”

“Told ya,” Willow smirked.

“Willow,” Dawn frowned at her old friend, “what is it about the here an' now that makes us fall in love so fecking quick?”

“Social pressure?” Willow shrugged, “Lack of consequences? I mean if you go to bed with a girl you're so totally not going to get pregnant and...”

“And?” Dawn repeated hoping for an answer that would tell her why she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the Moosrab woman after only knowing her for less than five minutes.

“...well....maybe...perhaps...she is the 'one'.

“The one?”

“Your soul-mate,” Willow smiled, “like Tara was for me, I knew we were made for each other almost from the moment we met.”

“And Kennedy?”

“Not so much,” Willow admitted, “sure there was an attraction that I tried to ignore so it took longer...it really hurt when I thought she was dead.”

“And when you split up?”

“Again, not so much,” Willow sighed sadly, “by the time we met again I'd sorta accepted she was gone and it was all over between us.”

“So that's you, what about me?” Dawn wanted to know.

“Like I say,” Willow's face brightened up a little, “perhaps she's your Tara.”

“Yeah maybe,” Dawn admitted uncertainly, after all hadn't she been looking for someone 'special' and a green skinned, scarlet haired, alien officer really took special to a whole new level.

“So enough of our love lives,” Willow neatly changed the subject, “why are you still down here?”

“Got to try and find Miz Miller's body,” Dawn replied matter-of-factly, “would I be a terrible person if I said that I wasn't so upset about her being dead.”

“I thought she was MIA,” Willow responded.

“That just the Marine's way of saying she's dead but we haven't found the body yet,” Dawn explained.

“Oh,” Willow nodded her helmetless head in understanding, “and speaking as a science officer and ship's witch I'd say you aren't a bad person, Dawnie...”

“You're supposed to call me Miz Summers, y'know?”

“Fooie,” Willow replied shortly, “you'll always be Dawnie to me...”

“Now you sound like my step-moms,” Dawn replied in disgust.

“Whatever,” Willow remember not to breath too deeply of the death scented atmosphere, “You didn't know this Miller woman very well and from what I hear she wasn't exactly the brightest D'lah in the till.” 

“All newbie El-Tees are assholes to begin with, it's part of a senior NCOs job to turn them into real officers or get them killed gloriously if they don't improve.”

“Is that so?” Willow looked at Dawn with new respect accepting for the first time that Dawn wasn't a little girl any more.

“Unofficially...” Dawn grinned, “...but its what they tell you a Sergeant's School.”

“So, you're looking for Miller's body, then you'll make up something about how she went down swinging?”

“Something like that,” Dawn nodded.

“And you'll be doing this alone?”

“Nah,” Dawn shook her head, “Lilly Brooks and her section are around somewhere, they're here to help.”

“I've heard you mention her a lot lately.” Willow smirked, “You got another girlfriend?”

“Oh grow up!” Dawn laughed, “Lilly shows promise I'm just helping her along, she could be an officer one day.”

“I thought you didn't like officers.”

“No, I don't want to be an officer.”

“Whatever,” Willow looked at the notes she'd made on her computer, “I better get on, there's still stuff I wanna look at.”

“And I better get on with my body hunt,” Dawn replied before heading off to rendezvous with Lilly Brooks and her section.

As Dawn walked away, Willow watched her for a moment. It was true, although it was hard to admit, Dawn was what she appeared to be; a hard fighting, veteran Marine SNCO and not the cute teenager she remembered from Sunnydale. Maybe it _was_ time to start calling her 'Miz Summers'.

0=0=0=0

“Okay, Lilly,” Dawn projected a map onto a smooth piece of broken down wall and pointed to an area just south of the stargate, “this is where I think Miz Miller must have landed.”

“You think she's dead, Sergeant-Major?” Lilly wanted to know.

“Well, she might have crash landed,” Dawn explained, “she'd been complaining about there being something wrong with her grav-pack. Or if she did land safe she probably got shot up by the Jaffa...”

“The what?”

“Jaffa...that's what the bad guys are called.”

“Roger,” Lilly nodded, “nice to know what to call the people we're fighting.”

“Whatever, anyway that area was crawling with black hats so, yeah, I think we're looking for a body.”

“Hold on,” Lilly thought she'd spotted a flaw in Dawn's plan, “didn't you jump from further away, and if I'm not very much mistaken you're still very much alive Sergeant-Major.”

“I'm also totally, old and combat wise,” Dawn grinned, “and maybe one day I'll show you a few tricks they didn't teach in grav school.”

“Gotcha Sergeant-Major.”

“Okay,” Dawn sighed heavily, to be honest she'd got better things to do than search for missing lieutenants that she didn't know or particularly like. But doing things she didn't want to sort of came with the job, “lets move out!”

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Landing on top of a pile of blackened brick work, Dawn glanced down at the scanner she held in her armoured hand. Every Terran powered armour suit carried an emergency beacon that activated when the suit's owner was either killed or seriously injured. There was also the suit's normal IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) beacon which told a unit commander where all her assists were. The scanner was a more powerful version of the scanner fitted to Dawn's own suit, it was capable of picking up even the weakest of signals from the emergency beacon or the IFF, so far Dawn had picked up nothing.

Looking up from the scanner she glanced left and right, Lilly Brooks' section was stretched out in a line one hundred yards long. There were only enough scanners for herself, Corporal Brooks and Lance Corporal Jones the section's second NCO. The Marines were having to use their internal suit scanners so it was conceivable that one of the Marines could be standing on top of Miller's body and not notice because the officer was buried so deep under all the rubble that no signal would be picked up.

“Oh, this is pointless,” Dawn muttered under her breath; they might as well put up a marker when the town got rebuilt to state that somewhere around here lay the body of a TAMC Lieutenant, but Dawn knew she couldn't do that, the El-Tee had been a Marine and you just didn't give up on a Marine...who ever they were.

“I got something!” L/Cpl Jones' voice came over Dawn's comms.

“Where?” Dawn demanded as she looked over too her right; she could see the top of L/Cpl Jones' helmet where she was standing in a hole in the ruins.

“About three yards ahead and maybe five down,” Jones replied, “it certainly reads as an emergency beacon, Sergeant-Major.”

“Okay,” Dawn took control of the situation, “Jones, you back off and form a cordon around the position, Corporal Brooks you help me check this out.”

There were acknowledgements from both Brooks and Jones and the next time Dawn looked she saw Marines flying into position around the suspected location of Miz Miller. By the time Dawn got over to the depression in the ruins, Corporal Brooks was already there.

“Definitely a TAMC IFF, Sergeant-Major,” Lilly Brooks reported as Dawn came into land.

Dawn found herself in what appeared to be the remains of a cellar. By some fluke it had been blasted clean of debris and looked almost untouched by the battle that had raged for the town.

“Lets see...” Dawn looked at her own scanner, there was definitely something about three yards ahead of her and buried under what looked like several tons of rubble, “...I'd say that was our missing officer.”

“Sure looks like it Sergeant-Major...”

“Call me 'Chief',” Dawn said as she studied the read out of her scanner.

“Okay, Chief, how do you want to proceed?”

“Erm...” Dawn thought about the problem for a moment, “...very carefully...lets start by moving some of this junk.”

It took maybe ten minutes for the two Marines to dig down to the point where they thought they should find the missing Marine, but when they got there, there was no sign of her.

“Maybe someone left some electronics on down here,” Brooks suggested.

“Nah,” Dawn shook her head, “that's a Marine IFF,” she held out her scanner to Brooks, “look the signals got stronger...lets dig some more.”

Heaving bricks and baulks of timber out of the way, Dawn and Lilly were eventually confronted by what looked like a metal, fuel storage tank.

“She must be either under or the other side of that,” Dawn announced as she rested her hand against the battered metal of the tank.

“I'm betting that she's underneath it,” Lilly said.

“Totally,” Dawn agreed, “lets get the rest of this junk outta the way then we can lift this thing up and see what we've got.”

Another five minutes passed, the digging would have taken a lot longer had they not been wearing their powered suits, before Dawn and Lilly were in position at either end of the tank.

“Okay, lift!” Dawn ordered.

The tank rose from the ruins easily, it appeared to have been empty and long abandoned. Tossing the tank to one side, Dawn looked down to see a badly damaged armoured suit lying in the rubble.

“Crap!” Dawn exclaimed as she knelt beside the body.

“Is she alive?” Lilly asked as she waved over a couple of her section to help with getting Miller out of the hole.

Kneeling next to Miller's body, Dawn flipped open the cover to Miller's medical read-outs, all the indicator lights were dead, but this didn't mean that Miller was.

“Read-out's dead, I'll have to take off her helmet...” it was only then that Dawn discovered that Miller's helmet was missing, “Crap,” she repeated as she moved a piece of wood that had been covering Miller's head, “this must have stopped her head from being crushed,” Dawn felt for a pulse, when she couldn't find one she stripped her hand of her armoured glove and tried again, “she's alive...just!”

No sooner had the words left Dawn's mouth had Lilly started to call for a cas-evac.

“Dust off in five minutes,” Lilly informed Dawn after finishing her call.

“Okay, lets get her outta here,” once again Dawn bent to her work.

It took the four Marines, almost as long as it took the shuttle to arrive to get Miller's body out of the hole. Normally they'd take an injured Marine out of her armour to aid with recovering her body. But this time Dawn went against doctrine because she had the suspicion that the only thing keeping Miller alive and in more or less one piece was her suit. Lying Miller on the floor of the cellar, Dawn checked her out. There were several suspected broken bones and what looked like a lot of crush injuries. Miller's suit had been badly dented in several places and somehow she'd lost her helmet, Dawn wondered how that had happened. However, it had happened it had probably caused the bad gash on the back of Miller's neck. Moments after Dawn had finished her examination, the shuttle landed and disgorged a Star Force medical team who ran over to the Marines and took charge of Miller's battered body.

“Okay,” Dawn stood up and looked around at the members of first section, “good work everyone. I think its time we all got back to the Reluctant for hot showers and hot chow.”

Watching as the shuttle took Miller back to the hospital ship in orbit, Dawn couldn't help thinking that that was one Marine less for the TAMC to worry about. Alliance med-tech was good, very good in fact, but there was no way Miller was going to recover from her injuries enough to allow her to continue her service in the Marines.

“Probably a good thing,” Dawn told herself before calling for a shuttle to take herself and first section back to the Reluctant.

0=0=0=0

Standing on the plinth where the stargate stood, Willow smiled, you had to admire the Moosrab sense of humour. The Moosrab soldiers; women from a unit who's name roughly translated as, 'The Duchess of Regina's 7th Huscarla', had ripped the still living 'snakes' from the bodies of dead Jaffa and impaled them on small stakes. They'd then arranged the stakes to form an avenue leading away from the stargate. The first thing any attacking Jaffa would see as they came through the gate would be a lot of very dead Goa'uld symbionts.

Most of the bodies had been cleared from the area so the air was a lot fresher than it had been so Willow could work without having to worry about how deeply she breathed. This was the first time she'd been able to study a stargate up close and personal. Before today every time she'd come close to a stargate someone had been shooting at her or she'd been looking at it through the sights of the Reluctant's main armament. Although they'd hit the five stargates on Novalba with ultra-high-velocity kinetic bolts from the Reluctant's six inch mass drivers, Willow wasn't convinced that the stargates had been destroyed. Sure they'd blown big holes in Alba's surface and yes the stargates were buried and looked as if they'd been destroyed, but there was no way of checking.

As she didn't know what the stargates were made of she didn't know what to look for when she'd sent down a drone to take soil samples after all the fires had gone out and the larva had stopped erupting. Deep down, Willow suspected that the gates were simply buried and if the Alliance didn't go back, find them and dig them up someone else would. Recent history had shown that an awful lot of these Jaffa soldiers could come through one stargate, how many could come through six? The one thing the Alliance didn't need was another enemy, what with the Shedu and the possible threat posed by maybe thousands of Replicants, the artificial women built by Tyrell Corp to help Wolfram and Hart conquer Novalba and set up their own little hell away from hell. No, the more Willow looked at the stargate the less she seemed to know; she was beginning to think that the best thing to do with the stargates was to drop them into a black hole or something. It was just as she was about to switch off and put away her computer that a voice distracted her.

“Terran Officer!”

Willow turned to see a Moosrab soldier standing not more than a couple of yards away from her.

“Terran Officer, do not move!”

“Erm...w...why not?” Willow replied nervously; from the tone of voice coming from the Huscarla it was obvious something bad was about to happen.

“THIS!” the Huscarla moved incredibly quickly and snatched something from the back of Willow's suit and then held it up for her to see, “Snake-thing...you be careful or you get one in your head then I have to kill you, which would be a pity.”

“T...thanks,” Willow gulped loudly, news about the Goa’uld ‘snakes’ had got around real quick (luckily for her) “erm...why?”

“Red haired Terrans are sexy!” without another word the Huscarla laughed and walked over to where the line of impaled snakes started.

Taking a stake from the pile that lay on the ground she impaled the snake and put it to join its brethren. Taking a deep breath Willow recovered from her near taking over by an alien life form and made a mental note to take some of the _dead_ snakes back up to the Reluctant where she could study them. As she walked over to the steps that would lead her down from the plinth she felt the ground begin to shake. Turning she looked up at the gate to see the inner circle start to move as lights flashed and stream arose from the gate.

“This can't be good,” Willow told herself as she drew her sidearm and jumped down off the plinth before running for cover.

0=0=0=0

Sitting in the command chair of her command walker, Captain Victoria-KB57TEV looked at her sensors, there was something wrong here. Turning her head she looked into the holo-tank that gave her a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the world outside her walker.

“The stargate is active,” she announced calmly; she was a veteran soldier and little things like planetary invasions didn't worry her so much as they once might have, “all troops to defensive positions.”

Watching she saw her Huscarla run for their positions covering the stargate, she had one company detached from the 7th to act as close support for her walkers. The walkers themselves were like old fashioned Terran attack helicopters but bigger and on two legs instead of having rotors. As she watched the walkers settled down behind the larger ruins until they were almost invisible.

“Activate active camouflage,” within seconds the walkers had vanished, no one would see any of the twelve combat walkers, their rotary cannon, missiles and rockets until it was too late. “Now,” Victoria smiled exposing her, sharp, white teeth, “lets see who comes out of the stargate this time.”

0=0=0=0

Colonel Jack O'Neill felt himself flying through the air as he was ejected forcefully from the stargate, this _was not_ supposed to happen, he thought Carter had fixed the gate months ago. Landing heavily, he rolled to a stop and groaned as several old injuries complained about the rough treatment his body was receiving. Not for the first time Jack wondered why he'd allowed himself to be talked back into the Air force and into joining the stargate program; the answer to that question was easy, he'd not been given much of a choice in the matter. Aware of Carter, Daniel and Teal'c coming to an untidy halt nearby, Jack climbed slowly to his feet and looked around.

“This is wrong,” Jack announced, “Carter?”

“Sir?” Sam Carter was now on her feet and was also looking around in confusion.

“I may not be a rocket scientist but this isn't P6F666...for a start the MALP sent back pictures of trees, big...green...trees and not...” Jack gestured to the destruction all around him, “...not a war zone.”

“I don't understand it, Sir...” Carter replied as she headed for the DHD.

“That's worrying,” Jack told himself under his breath.

“I dialled in the address myself.”

“You're telling me this is a wrong number?”

“Maybe, Sir,” Carter agreed as she studied the DHD.

“Damn-it!” Jack sighed, “I hate it when I'm right.”

“Did no one else notice the unusually long period of time we spent in transit?” Teal'c asked.

“Now you mention it...” Carter agreed, the DHD wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know so she redirected her attention to her surrounding, “...this place really took a hit.”

“And pretty recently too,” Daniel agreed, “what's that smell?”

“That,” Jack sniffed, “is the smell of napalm and burnt bodies...the smell of freedom!”

“You think the Goa'uld attacked this place and burnt it down?” Teal'c wanted to know, “Such a tactic would be unusual even for the Goa'uld.”

“No,” Jack had caught sight of something the others had missed, “I think the Goa'uld came through the stargate an' someone kicked their snake asses!”

“How...” Carter followed the direction of O'Neill's gaze and saw the rows of staked symbionts for the first time, “...oh my...”

“I think I'm going to enjoy meeting these people,” Jack smiled.

0=0=0=0

Sitting in her command walker, Captain Victoria watched the four figures in her holo-tank as her finger itched to pull the trigger and reduce the invader males to red pulp. The command walker was loaded down with sensors and comms gear instead of weapons, but she still had a 23mm tri-barrel auto-cannon in the chin turret that would deal with these knew invaders. The one thing that was saving the lives of those penis-waging-scum was the fact that there was a female with them, obviously some sort of sex-slave to entertain the males while they were on their expedition.

“Captain-KB57TEV,” a voice came from the walker's comms, a Terran voice, “this is General Kennedy, under no circumstances are you to open fire on the people who've just come through the stargate. I have information that while seventy-five percent of them are males, they are one-hundred-percent non-Jaffa, over.”

“Roger, understood General, I will not kill the despicable, slimy, nauseating males, but can I rescue the female?”

“NO!” Kennedy ordered, “Do nothing until I get some Marines down there to take them into custody, understand?”

“Yes General,” Victoria couldn't understand the human's 'love' for males, but she knew how to obey orders, “I understand.”

The comms link went dead and Victoria was left with her own thoughts; she might not be able to shoot the evil penises but the general hadn't said anything about not scaring the crap out of them!

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

**Janestown.**

“I was thinking, Sir,” Carter explained as she walked down the stairs of the plinth to where O'Neill was at present standing.

“I'd be shocked and surprised if you ever stopped, Carter,” O'Neill replied as he bent to retrieve the burnt and broken staff weapon lying at his feet.

“Thank-you, Sir...” Carter hesitated for a moment before adding, “...I think...”

“So, what are you thinking?” O'Neill asked as he tossed away the broken weapon.

“What if this _is_ P6F666, Sir?”

“Not enough trees to be P6F666,” O'Neill pointed out, “remember, SG3 went there a couple of months back and reported nothing but trees...”

SG1's present mission was to explore further from the stargate on P6F666 than SG3 had been able to go before one of its team members had been injured when a tree fell on him.

“I know, Sir,” Carter tried to explain, “but what if this is an _alternative_ P6F666...I mean we've had weirder things happen.”

“You mean...?” O'Neill looked around at the ruins and tried to imagine it as all forest.

“The route taken by the wormhole went close to at least one sun and through a spacial anomaly,” Carter explained, “maybe it sent us into an alternate version of P6F666.

“So why didn't the same thing happen to SG3?” Daniel Jackson wanted to know.

“Indeed,” Teal'c added laconically as he figuratively threw a bucket of cold water over Carter's idea.

“Perhaps the sun and spacial anomaly weren't in the correct alignment at that time,” Carter countered.

“Or maybe it was magic?” O'Neill suggested unhelpfully.

“Have to be pretty powerful magic, Sir,” Carter replied humouring O'Neill's suggestion.

0=0=0=0

Lying in her hiding place with her suit's active camouflage system turned to maximum, Willow listened in on Carter and O'Neill's conversation. Magic! How stupid of her not to think of it herself, she told herself. Obviously Wolfram and Hart had conjured up these Stargates or brought them from another reality, it sort of explained why no one had ever see one before, except... It didn't explain why the Leia IV stargate had been where it was for at least a hundred years, probably a lot longer. But then again it had been studied a lot so maybe that was how Wolfram and Hart had found out about the existence of the stargates.

0=0=0=0

“O'Neill,” Teal'c called, “there is something wrong here...”

“You're telling me,” O'Neill agreed under his breath.

“Do you not feel it?” Teal'c wanted to know.

“Feel what?”

“Like we are being watched...”

“Yeah I felt that too,” Daniel agreed.

“That's unusually perceptive of you, Daniel,” O'Neil smirked.

“No, what I mean,” Daniel tried to explain, “all this,” he gestured to encompass the ruins and the dead Goa'uld, “happened relatively recently, within hours of our arrival in fact, it stands to reason that whoever did it hasn't gone away.”

“Yeah,” O'Neill eyed his surrounding warily, “you could be right...Carter...?”

Before he could tell Carter to dial up Earth something moved in amongst the rubble, something big, something big and heavily armed. Looking up in surprise O'Neill saw the first combat walker stand up from behind a not a particularly large section of ruin only fifty yards away from where he was standing. The walker turned towards him like some huge beast, weapons mounts turned to cover him and the rest of SG1. Although it was probably pointless O'Neill covered the behemoth with his P90 only to hear Carter call out from behind him. Turning at the sound of Carter's voice, O'Neill saw several more of the walking machines apparently rise up out of rabbit holes. Some of them were so close he couldn't understand how he'd not seen them before.

The next shock to O'Neill's system was when he noticed a couple of dozen human sized figures step into view. Once again he couldn't understand how he'd not tripped over a couple of them they were so close. Each figure was dressed in some sort of armoured suit and carried fairly normal looking assault rifles. It dawned on O'Neill that these must be the people who had taken out the Goa'uld invasion force.

“Hey, Carter,” O'Neill lowered his weapon, it was probably best not to antagonise these people, “don't they look a little short for stormtroopers?”

The figures in the armoured suits did indeed look a 'little short'. But that thought soon fled from O'Neill's mind as he saw a pile of rubble apparently move, stand up and turn into yet another armoured figure. O'Neill's military eye noticed that this new figure was dressed in a different type of suit to the others and was carrying a much smaller gun. The figure opened her face plate to reveal a woman's face, she ran towards where SG1 were standing.

“NO SHOOTING!” she cried, “GENERAL KENNEDY IS GOING TO BE SO TOTALLY PISSED AT YOU!”

“General Kennedy?” O'Neill asked the universe, but got no explanation.

0=0=0=0

“Who's General Kennedy?” O'Neill asked Carter in a quiet voice a little later.

“Damned if I know, Sir, and why's he got such an Earth-like name?” Carter wondered aloud.

“They probably share a common heritage with us,” Daniel pointed out, “Irish-Celtic maybe?”

“These seem formidable warriors, O'Neill, with advanced weapons,” Teal'c observed, “would it not be advantageous for Earth to form an alliance with them?”

“Y'think?” O'Neill replied which seemed to answer everyone's question.

By now the shortish woman in the armoured suit was standing about six feet in front of O'Neill; he noticed that she still held her weapon, it looked like a small sub-machine gun, in her hand, but on the plus side she wasn't pointing it at him, unlike almost everyone else. The woman straightened up and much to his surprise, saluted.

“Lieutenant Commander Willow Rosenberg, erm...Star Force,” Willow thought it was best to leave out the 'Terran Alliance' bit if these were the _real_ SG1 from a real but alternative Earth.

“Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force,” O'Neill returned Willow's salute, he turned to introduce his team, “Major Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson and Teal'c.”

“Yeah, Teal'c,” Willow frowned, “I don't wanna sound like rude or anything and I'm sure this Teal'c is a totally nice...guy, but...”

“But?” O'Neill cocked an eyebrow.

“Could he disarm,” Willow shifted uncomfortably, “you see by Moosrab friends,” she gestured to the soldiers surrounding SG1, “are just a little trigger happy having, like, y'know, just fought thousands of...guys...who look like him and, well, not to put too fine a point on it...like...he's totally a...guy.”

“A guy?” O'Neill queried as he noticed how Willow kept hesitating before she said 'guy' or 'guys'.

“The Moosrab have like 'issues' with guys in general so maybe you should just all disarm,” Willow tried her best to sound friendly, “'cept you Major Carter, you're a girl so you can keep your weapons...and...” Willow turned to look at the surrounding soldiers, “...WILL EVERYONE TOTALLY STOP POINTING GUNS AT PEOPLE!?”

0=0=0=0

**Aboard the TASS Reluctant.**

“Is it just me,” O'Neill began, “but does anyone else think its odd that everyone we've seen so far is a girl?” O'Neill noticed the slightly annoyed look Carter was giving him and corrected himself, “Woman I mean...”

The last hour-and-a half-had been a whirlwind of activity. After being politely but firmly disarmed, except Carter who'd been allowed to keep her Zat, SG1 had been led to an area free of ruins where a shuttle appeared out of the sky. Of course this shuttle was nothing like a NASA shuttle. This shuttle was much smaller, sleeker and gave off an impression of barely hidden menace, it also hardly made any noise as it landed.

“We'll take a couple of hundred of these,” O'Neill said as he walked aboard through the large hatch at the rear of the craft.

The 'Loadmaster', or in this case the 'Load-Mistress', made sure they were all strapped in, along with the two armoured soldiers sent to guard them, before they got airborne again and headed for orbit. Although the craft must have been pulling multiple 'G's' to get into space the ride felt little worse than a ride in a high speed elevator. Once in orbit it had been a short trip of only a few minutes when the shuttle docked with a much larger ship. The shuttle flew into a large loading bay, where SG1 was off loaded. Next the representatives from Earth were escorted to a big room or cabin, they weren't locked in but two more armoured warriors were left guarding the door to discourage any attempts SG1 might make to explore the vessel.

0=0=0=0

“Perhaps in the society where these women come from,” Teal'c suggested, “the women are the dominant sex.”

“Unlikely,” Daniel replied about to throw cold water on the ex-Jaffa's idea, “all the Earth stories about races of warrior women are myths.”

“They are?” Carter sounded a little disappointed, as a young girl she'd been a fan of Wonder Woman for a while.

“Yeah,” Daniel continued, “they’re stories mostly made up by Ancient Greek explorers...of course there were peoples like the Scythians...”

“Scythians?” O'Neill asked while dreading the answer.

“Horse warriors from the coast of the Black Sea,” Daniel informed him, “in Scythian society it was not unusual for some women and girls to join their brothers and fathers in riding to battle...”

“What about their uncles?” O'Neill asked because the question needed asking.

“...and their uncles,” Daniel replied without a pause, “Then there were the Viking 'Shield Maidens', Celtic women would join their male relatives in defending home and hearth as would the women of many other societies.”

“Thank-you Daniel for that interesting and thankfully short explanation,” O'Neill said before adding, “But that still doesn't change the fact that we've only seen women...and teenage girls.”

“And they all speak very nearly perfect English,” Carter observed.

“Yeah, like when does that ever happen?” Daniel wanted to know.

“And have you noticed how their ranks are all the same as US or UK ranks?” Carter pointed out.

“I just hope we don't meet any 'Flying Officers',” O'Neill quipped, “I always thought that was weird.”

“Has anyone else noticed how...” Daniel paused to search for the right word, “...uncomfortable around us everyone is, except when they're talking to Sam?”

“What's her name, Lieutenant Commander Rubinstein...”

“Rosenberg,” Carter corrected O'Neill gently.

“...yeah her, she seems okay with us.”

0=0=0=0

Standing in the ship's security centre, Willow, Faith and Kennedy watched the live feed coming from the guest cabin at present occupied by SG1.

“Have they said anything of interest?” Kennedy wanted to know; she'd just got back from contacting Army Command on Earth, she expected a reply in two or three weeks, so she'd not been watching the Earth people for long.

“Nah,” Faith shook her head, “they've just been talking about stuff...”

“What Lieutenant Lehane means,” Willow added with a grin, “is they're using 'Banter', I expect they know they're being watched and listened to, so, they're trying not to give anything away.”

“Xander?” Kennedy raised her voice a little so that Xander, who was watching the same live feed in his cabin could hear.

“As far as I can remember,” Xander's voice entered the compartment through several cunningly hidden loudspeakers, “this is the real SG1 as depicted by the actors in the show.”

“But these aren't actors,” Kennedy observed.

“All their weapons and equipment checked out as real, General,” Faith pointed out.

“Xander,” Kennedy called once again, “when was the show broadcast...originally I mean?”

“Late 90's early 2000's,” Xander replied, “it was still on when we were fighting The First...it probably got canned after that.”

“Along with everything else that was any good,” Willow muttered.

“Hey!” Faith laughed at Willow's 'sad-face', “Just coz they cancelled 'Laura's Beach'...”

“Yeah and I never found out what happened to little Ashley...” Willow complained.

“Ladies,” Kennedy said warningly before continuing with something not to do with old TV shows, “this brings up some interesting questions...”

“It does?” Willow and Faith asked.

“If they come from an Earth where Stargate SG1 is real and not a TV show, is it happening in the same time frame as the show was broadcast?”

“I don't see why not,” Willow said after she'd thought about it for a moment.

“Xander ya got any input about this?” Faith wanted to know.

“Glad you asked,” Xander replied, “from what I've heard and seen this SG1 is from the period after the P90's were introduced to the show and before the Daniel Jackson's character 'Ascended'...”

“Ascended?” Kennedy asked.

“To a higher plain of existence,” Xander explained, “in reality the actor, Armative Shanks wanted to do 'other work' or something.”

“And this would have been when?” Kennedy wanted to know.

“A couple of years before 'The First' screwed everything up and we all got thrown into the future,” Xander replied.

“Oh...” Willow said after a moment's more thought.

“Oh?” Kennedy raised an eyebrow, “I think our Science Officer has just realised what I've been worried about since I found out who these people are and what they represent.”

“Hey, I might be just a dumb slayer,” Faith wasn't but it appeared to be her job to ask the 'stupid' questions so other people could explain things, “so what're ya goin’ on about?”

“Look...” Willow took a deep breath, she could feel a 'time-travel-babble' coming on, “...if these people come from a time and reality were we haven't confronted The First yet, any contact with them might alter the outcome of our fight with the First and change history.”

“And this would be bad because...?” Faith asked.

“Because,” Kennedy replied in what she called her 'serious general' voice, “if we don't lose against 'The First' and get catapulted into the future none of this,” she gesture to the compartment and by extension the star ship, “will exist...and quite honestly, I like it here. The here and now isn't perfect but its probably better than it would have been,” Kennedy paused, “Of course being a life-long lesbian I'm biased.”

“Yeah, I get that now,” Faith replied slowly, “I kinda like this reality as is, I mean I'd have died years ago if I'd stayed a slayer on Earth.”

“It's totally selfish I know,” Willow chipped in, “but I kinda like doing what I do now...I mean all the death an' destruction isn't so good, but the space exploration is great! I'd never have got into space if I hadn't been shot into the here and now.”

“So we're agreed,” Kennedy looked from Willow to Faith, “whatever happens we can't let any interaction with these people change the course of our history.”

“Hey!” Xander's voice came from the loudspeakers, “Don't I get a say?”

“Frankly,” Kennedy replied briskly, “no, this is a military mater and your just a...”

“Man?” Xander asked.

“No, I was going to say 'civilian consultant'.”

“Consultant?” Xander gave an audio shrug, “Consultant's good, do I get paid?”

“Hey!” Willow cried, “Maybe where these guys come from we're the TV show, like 'The Scoobie Demon Killers' or something.”

“That title so doesn't work for me...” Faith said.

“Okay how about, 'Buffy and the Slayerettes; Vampire Hunters'?”

“Ladies!” Kennedy almost shouted before Faith could come in with a reply, “You're sounding like a couple of teen-fangirls.”

“Sorry,” Faith and Willow shuffled their feet guiltily.

“Believe it or not, I have thought about this,” Kennedy pointed out.

“How...when!?” Willow wanted to know.

“It does say 'General' on my jacket...”

“No it doesn't,” Faith tried to point out but was ignored.

“...and it's what I do,” Kennedy completed what she was going to say before anyone else could butt in.

“So?” Willow asked.

“So...I intend to send a small elite team...” once again Kennedy was interrupted.

“Me! Me, me, me!” Willow raised her hand and jumped up and down, she was quickly silenced by one of Kennedy's most withering looks.

“...a small _elite_ team to discover any similarities between this reality and the SG1 reality.”

“So who're ya sending?” Faith wanted to know.

“Someone sensible,” Kennedy pondered her choices, “someone who'll obey orders, someone who I can trust implicitly...” Kennedy looked into Willow's hopeful face, “...I was thinking of sending my aide, Major Singh and Sergeant-Major Summers...”

“Dawn!?!?” Willow gasped as her universe fell apart around her.

“Nooo!” Kennedy laughed, “Of course I'll send you...but Dawn will be there to make sure you don't get into trouble,” she looked at Faith, “I'm not sending you coz I don't want them to find out about Slayers...and if anything goes wrong I want someone, apart from me, who knows the truth.”

“That's cool,” Faith nodded.

“So,” Kennedy checked the chronometer on the bulkhead, “lets all reconvene in my command centre in about a couple of hours and we'll have Dawn bring our guests along so we can talk all friendly like...” when no one moved, Kennedy sighed and said, “...dismissed!”

Alone in the room once again, Kennedy sighed and said to the universe in general, “Y'know sometimes I think I don't get the respect other generals get...”

“I know how you feel,” Xander's disembodied voice replied.

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

**Somewhere to the East of Janestown.**

“Why has our god forsaken us?” First of One-Hundred, Marha'fu wanted to know.

“If I didn't need every Jaffa I could find,” snapped First of One-Thousand, Hofn'ag, “I would kill you where you stand.”

The two Jaffa commanders were in fact standing in one of the mostly intact outbuildings of a large farm complex three or four miles away from Janestown. Hidden in and around the buildings were another five-hundred or so Jaffa who'd escaped the vengeance of the 'demons in hard shells'. They'd somehow all managed to avoid being killed by the armed and armoured demons and their war machines. The survivors had first formed into small groups and then into larger groups until a leader had been found to reorganise them into a fighting force once more. Being the highest ranking Jaffa, Hofn'ag had lead his troops to the farm where they had rested while he had held a council of war with his fellow commanders. It had been decided that they would wait here until night time and then attack the demons holding the town and the Chappa'ai. Once the Chappa'ai was in their hands the survivors would be able to return to Chulak. 

“It is well know that the Great God Apophis returned to Chulak to bring reinforcements,” Hofn'ag explained in a slightly more conciliatory tone.

“Ran away more like!” Nah'fro, a First of Fifty spat the words out, “You weren't there, Hofn'ag, you didn't see the fear in the 'Great God's' eyes as he ran like a dog for the Chappa'ai!”

“JAFFA KREE!” Hofn'ag ordered as he cast a baleful eye over the assembled commanders, “I know we have suffered a defeat but those we fight are not demons they are weak, primitive humans...”

“Not so weak when they are wearing those armoured suits,” Nah'fro pointed out the inconvenient truth, “I have fought the Tau-ri before and although they were formidable opponents I have never seen any like these, armoured devils.”

“They are not of the Tau-ri,” Marha'fu observed, “their weapons are similar but the ones these demons carry are far more powerful...”

“And they can fly!” cried a First of Ten from the rear of the group, “How can we fight demons who can fly!?”

“And those walking machines...!” murmured another First of Ten.

“ENOUGH!” Hofn'ag cried stilling the assembled Jaffa by sheer force of will, “Whatever and whoever these demons are and where they come from is not important. What is important is that we return to our Lord Apophis to fight another day. Remember we are Jaffa, none can stand against us!”

“Indeed,” one First of Ten muttered quietly to another, “'none can stand against us',” he laughed mirthlessly, “these hard shell demons seem to have been doing a more than adequate job so far.”

“The plan is simple,” Hofn'ag explained, “we wait until it is full dark, then we move from these buildings to the dried up river bed that runs almost to the edge of the town. From there we attack towards the Chappa'ai. We must not let anything stop us, some of us _must_ return to Chulak and our god!” A half hearted cheer greeted Hofn'ag's words, “Now go, prepare yourselves.”

0=0=0=0

Crouching behind a rough barricade of stone and bricks, Corporal Katie-SP15ULO checked her front before ducking back into cover. It had been she and her sisters of the 7th Huscarla's who had supported the War-Walkers as they'd smashed their way into the town to relieve the Terran Marines who'd been holding the stargate. The Terrans had successfully prevented the vile, arrogant, penis waging males from reinforcing their fellow scum on the perimeter. Those Terran Marines were brave and Katie was proud to be on their side, she'd hate to have had to fight them.

The Moosrab Confederation had been neutral in the war between the Shedu and the Terrans, however, it was the kind of neutrality that sold weapons and supplies to the Terrans while blasting any Shedu ship that dared invade Moosrab space. About two years ago the Confederation had declared war on the Shedu after they'd attacked one of the Confederation's outlying colonies. Within days of the declaration of war, the Confederation was fully allied to the Terran Alliance.

Katie, being an intelligent Moosrab was quite aware that had it not been for the Terrans, the Moosrab military would have been at a grave disadvantage against the Shedu. When the war had started the Moosrab army had no power armour and their weapons were inferior to the Terran's weapons. Yes, they had their hand-phasers but these didn't always work as well as the Terran projectile weapons, plus all attempts to up-scale the hand-phaser had been less than successful.

The injection of Terran technology had been a boost for Moosrab tech and industry which had appeared to have stagnated over the last three or four hundred years. Certainly, they'd wiped out all the penises in their part of space but, arrogant, males were no real match for a Moosrab soldier however she was armed. Being the intelligent woman that she was Katie knew that unless the 'Bean of Life', which Moosrab women used to reproduce, could be made to work for all of female-kind, some penises would have to be left alive so that the humans could continue to thrive. It was sad and Katie felt sorry for the humans who were still ‘Slaves To The Penis'. 

The evidence she'd seen in this town was that the Terrans here still actually had to copulated with males in order to get pregnant and that intelligence had made her feel physically sick. Pushing these thoughts to the back of her mind, Katie checked her assault rifle, a Moosrab copy of a Terran M-Tar. Glancing around she checked that none of her Huscarla were visible, it would soon be night and although everyone was equipped with the most up-to-date night vision devices, dusk and dawn were still a good times to launch an attack.

“Stand-to,” Katie spoke softly over her comms and the seven other Moosrab in her section slowly and carefully moved into their fighting positions.

Her section covered a hundred-and-fifty yard front to the east of Janestown. About twenty or thirty yards to her front was the end of a large drainage ditch that the locals hadn't had time to finish before the grey armoured penises had come through the stargate. If there was going to be an attack it would come from there. Earlier one of the Terran recon drones had picked up movement around a farm about a couple of miles out from the edge of what had once been the town. Although the drone had stayed on station for several minutes it had seen nothing to confirm the presence of enemy troops and had been re-tasked. Waiting until it was fully dark and her night vision aids started to work properly, Katie did a long slow scan of the ground before her and found in free of any stray penises that might be trying to sneak up on her.

“Even numbers stand-down,” Katie ordered, “odd numbers remain at stand-to.”

This meant that half her section was on guard while the other half could rest. Although she was an 'even number' there'd be no rest for Katie. Although she'd lost no one in the fighting they had used up nearly all their ammunition. They'd received a 'replen' earlier, but Katie was still worried about the ammo states of her Huscarla, after all you could never have enough ammunition and you always seemed to be low on things you could shoot at your enemies. Katie was particularly worried about how much ammo there was for the two Flachette guns in her section.

The Moosrab didn't like the LAG that the Terrans used believing that its powerful long range bullet was wasted in the close-in fighting that had seemed to have become the norm. Instead they used the Flachette gun, a sort of large magazine fed 30mm shotgun. It could be used to spray solid shot, incendiaries, smoke or gas pellets. It was extremely effective against Shedu wave assaults and had cut down dozens of the grey penis wagers in the present fight. What was worrying Katie was that her two gunners had only received solid shot during the ammo replen. However, she expected they'd manage...somehow. Just as she was about to check on everyone's power-cell states, Katie's external microphones picked up a sound like some rubble being displaced by a carelessly placed foot.

Looking over her piece of barricade, Katie almost got her head shot off by a staff-weapon blast.

“STAND-TO! STAND-TO!” Katie yelled over her comms, “ENEMY TO THE FRONT! WATCH AND SHOOT! WATCH AND SHOOT!”

Almost immediately her section opened fire as bright green figures appeared out of the ground in front of the Moosrab position. Bringing up her AR-2A, Katie saw a multitude of Jaffa warriors swim into focus. Squeezing her trigger she saw the first Jaffa fall as her rounds sparked against his armour as they penetrated. Shifting targets she fired into a group who were advancing to her left. The two lead Jaffa went down in a burst of bright sparks and dark blood as the others went to ground and opened an intense fire on her position. Ducking back into cover Katie felt the staff-weapon bolts impact her cover and start to blast it to dust.

Letting the tether on her rifle draw it back into the carrying position on her suit, Katie pulled her last rocket grenade from her thigh. Pulling the pin she threw it in the general direction of the Jaffa shooting at her. No sooner had the rocket grenade left her hand than the small rocket motor ignited, the grenade's sensors picked up the heat from the Jaffa's staff weapons and it changed course to fly directly at them. Picking up the explosion of the grenade on her external microphones, Katie climbed up onto her knees and sent a long burst of fire at the Jaffa. Those who hadn't been killed outright by the grenade had been dazed by the explosion and were easily cut down by her bullets.

Once more ducking back into cover Katie changed her AR-2's empty magazine for a full one and decided it was time to move from her present position. Not bothering to use her grav-pack and thruster jets she ran crouched over further to her left. It had occurred to her that if she could get into the cover of a burnt-up ground transporter she'd spotted she might be able to bring the attacking Jaffa under enfilade fire and 'really spoil their day' as the Terrans liked to say. Ignoring the staff blasts that flew over her head or expended their energy harmlessly against the already ruined buildings, Katie made it to her new position without being hit.

Hardly breathing heavily, she once again checked her rifle before bringing it up into a firing position. Popping up from behind the smashed and burnt-out vehicle, Katie saw she'd been right, she was now in a perfect position to slaughter the Jaffa as they broke from cover. Firing at the Jaffa as they ran forward, Katie once again wondered at the enemy's complete lack of tactical sense. There was no fire and movement, no attempt to suppress the defender's fire, no heavy weapons, no support weapons. The Jaffa's only tactic seemed to be to run at the enemy firing their staff weapons as they came.

Well, Katie smiled as she changed her empty magazine for yet another full one, as long as she had rounds they could run at her and die as much as they wanted. Even when she ran out of bullets, she still had her buzz-blade. This was something else the Terrans didn't use, they had a weapon called a 'Hand Flamer', a sort of small flame thrower, for close in defence. The Moosrab carried buzz-blades. A Moosrab weapons developer had once seen a woods-woman using a chain saw and had thought that a smaller, lighter version would make a good melee weapon. From that point onwards all Huscarla carried buzz-blades.

Watching as yet another pack of Jaffa were gunned down, Katie laughed as they spun and fell as bright sparks told of the rounds hitting them. It was only then that she started to feel angry. Janestown had been a peaceful and fairly prosperous farming community until the Jaffa came. Now it was little more than a ruin, its inhabitants either killed (reports were that the townswomen had put up a good fight before being forced to retreat) or scattered in refugee camps set up by the planetary government.

Everything, the death and destruction, had been caused by the Jaffa and their leaders. The arrogant, obnoxious, penis jerking, filth that were the Jaffa had done all this, no doubt so that they could subject the women of this planet to the sexual slavery that had been inflicted on the females of Moosrab in ancient times. Never again, Katie told herself as she let go of her rifle and allowed its tether to pull it back into its carrying position. Pulling her buzz-blade from off her back were it nestled next to her grav-pack, she stood up and switched the blade on, it started to buzz like a swarm of angry flying insects, Ducks, she was almost sure the Terrans called them, and held it aloft.

“DEATH TO THE PENIS!” she yelled although none of the enemy could hear her, but the rest of her section did as they too discarded their rifles and drew their buzz-blades.

Running towards the Jaffa, Katie seemed to slide past the staff blasts directed at her. The first Jaffa Katie met was so tall he towered over her, thinking she was just some feeble woman he raised his staff to use it as a melee weapon aiming it at Katie's head. Raising her buzz-blade she laughed at the surprised expression on the Jaffa's face as the teeth of her blade easily cut through the staff. Bringing her blade back and around she sliced open the Jaffa's stomach and his protective armour. Jumping back she saw the snake like thing that most Jaffa appeared to have in their bellies, fall from its pouch and writhe on the ground. Stamping with her foot she snuffed out the vile creature's life before jumping over her first victim and beheading the next.

By the time Katie had killed her sixth Jaffa the rest of her section had joined her in turning the head of the Jaffa column into roughly butchered Jaffa-meat. But still they came on, they seemed to have no thought of retreating, they were either very brave, very stupid or they were just so arrogant that the idea of defeat never entered there minds. Katie put down their continued suicidal advance to a mixture or stupidity and the natural arrogance of the penis wager when faced by a female. 

The battle developed into the complete and bloody defeat of the last organised Jaffa force on Leia IV, as more Moosrab Huscarla advanced to join in the destruction of they race-enemies. Eventually the last few Jaffa were cornered in a section of the drainage ditch. The Jaffa formed a circle as a Huscarla officer advanced towards them buzz-blade in hand. Halting within easy talking distance of the Jaffa the officer opened her face plate so she could talk privately to the Jaffa. The Terran General wanted prisoners and although the young officer would much rather just kill the Jaffa for all the crimes that they had no doubt committed and those that they would commit, she was a good soldier and would obey orders however distasteful they might be.

“Surrender,” the officer demanded; a Jaffa stepped out from the much reduced grey clad ranks, “and you will be allowed to live, you have the word of the Terran General Kennedy that no harm will come to you.”

“Arik tre'ac te kek...AAAGH!” 

The Jaffa leader screamed and fell as one of his troopers shot him in the back. The Jaffa soldier then cast away his staff weapon as his fellows did the same.

“We surrender!” he cried and fell to his knees before the victorious Moosrab.

0=0=0=0

'Arik tre'ac te kek...', "We do not surrender, even in death..." 


	8. Chapter 8

**Aboard the Reluctant.**

“...make sure that Moosrab Corporal gets something...” Kennedy told her aide, Major Singh, “...hell, give something to her entire section. They basically broke the back of that Jaffa attack by themselves, plus medals are good for moral and it shows we totally appreciate our green-skinned allies.”

“Got that, General,” Major Singh made a note on her hand held computer.

“So is that the last of the Jaffa on planet?” Kennedy wanted to know.

“That was the last organised unit, that we know of,” Singh explained, “I expect there's some individuals and section sized units still in hiding, but Star Force are conducting sensor sweeps to find them.”

“And the Army and Marines will jump in and either kill or capture them?”

“That's the plan, General,” Singh nodded.

“Good...” Kennedy smiled as she sat behind her desk in her small office, “...and our prisoners...the Jaffa ones?”

“Thirty-seven Jaffa warriors have surrendered so far,” Major Singh consulted her computer again, “they're aboard the 'High Noon', the army has an Intelligence unit aboard.”

“Do our Intelligence Corps friends know about the Jaffa's snakes?”

“They've been warned.”

“Good, just checking, anything else of interest?”

“The Marines have taken over from the Huscarla guarding the stargate.”

“Good, those Moosrab have been on top of that thing for too long,” Kennedy sighed heavily, “I sometimes wish that the message time to and from Earth wasn't so long, so I knew what to do with that damned stargate. If I had my way I'd drop that fecking thing into the sun or something and have done with it! But then of course we'll have to go back to Novalba and dig up the ones we thought we'd destroyed there and drop them into the local sun too.”

“But General,” Singh smiled, “if the High Command could send messages in real time they'd be forever second guessing you and telling you what to do!”

“Yes,” Kennedy nodded firmly, “you're right of course, as the old saying goes; the effectiveness of a military force increases in direct proportion to how far it is away from any higher command. So, if there's nothing else?”

“Nothing that can't wait, General.”

“Thank-you, Amber,” Kennedy stood up and walked around her desk, “I better go to my next meeting...” she looked guiltily at her faithful aide, “...I'm sorry I can't let you in on this but I promise I'll explain everything later.”

“That's okay, General,” Major Singh nodded.

“I don't deserve you, Amber,” Kennedy smiled at the younger woman, “and I'm sorry I never got you the combat command I promised.”

“No problems General,” Amber Singh explained, “I'm quite happy where I am.”

“Whatever,” once again Kennedy sighed, “okay, time and secret meetings wait for no General, I better get on.”

0=0=0=0

Sitting around the conference table, Kennedy, Willow, Faith and Dawn read the report Xander had prepared for them about everything he could remember about SG1 and Stargate Command.

“This is really good work, Xander,” Willow smiled across the table to where Xander sat, “if only you'd applied yourself like this at high school.”

“They never taught anything interesting at school, Will,” Xander gave a resigned shrug and waited for everyone to finish reading.

Looking back down at the print-out in her hand, Willow smiled to herself; she of course found everything at school interesting, but she supposed some people didn't see it like that. However, Xander wasn't dumb, at school he could remember in perfect detail what the more attractive female members of staff had been wearing for the previous two weeks, so maybe if Sunnydale High had taught fashion design, Xander could have had a career in the clothing industry.

“Good report, Xander,” Kennedy put down her copy of the report and looked around the table, this was the signal for everyone to stop reading and pay attention to the senior officer present, “there's a few points I'd like to go over before we bring in SG1.” Kennedy looked directly at Xander, “Is Stargate Command a threat to us?”

“A threat to us here or a threat in general?” Xander asked in return.

“Both.”

“No...erm...General,” Xander felt a little weird calling a sixty year old woman who'd he'd first met when she was seventeen or eighteen by her first name so he'd gone with calling her by her rank, “Stargate Command are the good guys, at least they were in the show. Sure, they want hi-tech weapons to defend Earth, but they wouldn't do anything dishonourable to get them. Plus of course they're a good couple-of-hundred years behind Alliance tech.”

“Good to have your input Xander,” Kennedy nodded, “now another thing these, Ha'tak mother-ships just how powerful are they and can we destroy one?”

“One for me, I think,” Willow said after glancing around the table, “If you mean can the Reluctant destroy one, then I'd say most certainly _yes_.” Willow paused to take a breath, “Like most Goa'uld weaponry their main armament seems to be based on some sort of plasma technology like their staff weapons but a lot more powerful. Their main batteries would most certainly damage the Reluctant and eventually destroy her. However I think Lieutenant Lehane and myself could prevent that from happening.”

“Explain,” Kennedy indicated that Willow should continue.

“Right,” Willow glanced at Faith who gestured for her to take the lead, “their energy shields are the one thing we'd have to look out for, we've got nothing like them unless you count the gravitic shields we use to stop us being totally shredded by mini-metiorites. However, as with most Goa'uld tech it has a flaw, that is, if you are going slow enough you can pass right through them. I think this is so their fighters can dock and take off without them having to lower their shields.”

“So, how would you take advantage of this flaw?” Kennedy wanted to know.

“Up until last year,” Willow explained, “we couldn't have done this, but now we have the Mark Eighteen Gravitic Drive Missiles we'll be able to punch right through their shields. All I have to do is reprogram the missiles to sprint to the vicinity of the shield, decelerate, pass through the barrier and then explode.”

“Wouldn't there be a danger of a missile tearing itself apart due to gee forces?” Kennedy wanted to know.

“The Mk18 has inertial dampeners, it makes them more manoeuvrable,” Faith explained, “what Lieutenant Commander Rosenberg is suggesting is like so totally feasible, but the missiles would need to be reprogrammed before we go into battle.”

“Make it so, would you Willow?” Kennedy nodded to Willow, she noted the frown on Willow's face, “Something wrong?”

“I'll need permission from Captain Adams before I can do anything,” Willow replied.

“Don't worry once we've finished here I'll talk to Commodore Adams,” Kennedy made a note on her hand computer.

Captain Adams was the captain of the Reluctant and senior Star Force office in the task force; which made her Commodore and commander of the Star Force element of the task force.

“Okay,” Kennedy continued, “once we've got a missile through their shields what then?”

“We carry four types of warhead for our missiles,” Faith explained, “an EMP warhead designed to fry their electronics but leave the target mostly undamaged...”

Everyone grinned at the phrase 'mostly undamaged'.

“There's a simple HE fragmentation warhead, that I wouldn't consider using on such a large target,” Faith continued, “then we have variable yield nuclear warheads. I can dial them up from a few kilotons to a city killer of two-hundred megatons. A city killer nuke would most certainly reduce one of these Ha'tak ships to like space dust. Finally we have some Neutron bomb warheads. These shouldn't damage the target too much but the crew would almost certainly die of radiation poisoning. We could send aboard tech crews in anti-radiation suits and study their tech for as long as we want...”

The Terran Alliance had a long history of nuking first and vigorously interrogating the survivors before they died of radiation poisoning, later. The phrase, 'nuke 'em from orbit...its the only way to be sure' was well known military saying.

“And what about their fighters. Miz Lehane?”

“Well ma'am,” Faith took a breath while she looked through the notes she'd made, “these 'Death Gliders' are armed with two plasma cannon they're fast and have inertial dampeners. They can also transit from space to atmosphere flight unlike our Star Furies...however, in a space dogfight the Death Gliders wouldn't be a match for the Star Furies aboard the Mary Rose. The army's Thunderbolts and Skyraiders would rip them a new one if'n they went down into atmosphere. If they came after our ships our point defence should take them down just like they were Shedu missiles or pirate attack craft.”

“We seem to have them beat before the battle starts,” Kennedy smiled as she turned to face Dawn, “Finally, Sergeant-Major Summers, you've fought these Jaffa eyeball to eyeball...I'd like to hear your assessment of them.”

“Well General,” Dawn took a deep breath, “basically they're frigging crap! I mean I expect they're good against people who can't fight back, but against someone who can, all they can basically do is totally die in large numbers. If what Xander's report says is true,” she glanced at her old crush, “and I've no reason to disbelieve him, Stargate Command and their SG teams have been beating the Jaffa with inferior weapons and numbers for the last three or four years. The Jaffa have only the most basic grasp of small unit tactics. In fact their favourite method of fighting is to try and rush the enemy. Now this might work against someone with bows and arrows, but against someone with modern weapons its simple suicide. In hand-to-hand combat as long as you're in ya powered armour you can just pull them limb from limb or chop them up with an entrenching tool or combat knife. Those Moosrab Buzz-Blades are real effective,” a blood-thirsty gleam came into Dawn's eye, “General could we get some of those on loan, or maybe have them on general issue?”

“I'll certainly make that recommendation,” Kennedy made another note.

“So, assuming that we have to fight these jokers again,” Dawn concluded, “now that all combat troops in the Alliance and Confederation are being issued power armour, your average Marine platoon could take down a Jaffa army in an afternoon, but an army platoon might have to start in the morning...”

“Thank-you, thank-you all,” Kennedy glanced at Xander, “have you anything to add.”

“Well...” Xander thought for a moment, “...it's good to hear that everybody's pretty sure they can take the Goa'uld down. But...but, as I understand things the Alliance doesn't want another war and this task force is supposed to combat any incursion by The First.”

“Correct,” Kennedy confirmed.

“Then, I'd suggest that we send SG1 home and drop the Stargate into the sun,” Xander shrugged, “like you guys say...it's the only way to be sure.”

“Xander's comment fits in almost exactly with my own ideas on the subject...”

“It does!?” Xander grinned, “Cool.”

“But I've had an idea,” once again Kennedy glanced around the table, “at present I think we're all just a little concerned that this SG1 is from our own past and if we interfere we might change the past so that the here and now doesn’t exist...”

“There is a theory that any alteration to the timeline just brings into existence another timeline,” Willow suggested.

“Do you want to risk that it isn't so?” Kennedy asked.

“No...not really, but,” Willow replied, “we'd never notice if the past or future had changed because we'd never have experienced that timeline...”

“My brain hurts...” Faith said as she held her head in her hands.

“I have to agree with Lieutenant Lehane...my brain hurts too, so, I'm going to ere on the side of caution. However, these Goa'uld are obviously a threat to...erm...”

“Earth through the looking glass?” Dawn suggested. 

“Yeah that,” Kennedy nodded to Dawn, “the Goa'uld are a significant threat to 'Earth through the looking glass', I don't know about you but I don't feel right about leaving these people to fight on by themselves, I think they deserve a little help.”

“Agreed,” Willow and Faith nodded.

“Right on, General,” Dawn added her own agreement.

“But I'm only going to help them out once I'm sure that the present of Stargate SG1 isn't our past,” Kennedy waited for anyone to make a comment, when no one did and she turned to Dawn, “Sergeant-Major, would you be so good as to bring our guests to the conference room?”

“On it,” Dawn replied before she got up and headed for the door.

0=0=0=0

Standing in front of the replicator, O'Neill pressed his finger against the touch screen and watched as the menu appeared. He ignored all the sub-menus that said things like, 'weapons', or, 'tools'. These menus had successfully resisted all of Carter's hacking and computer geek skills. The menu that had said 'clothes' had produced clothing that was only suitable for Carter, so he wasn't going to try those again. Instead he pressed 'refreshments' he'd been there before and knew what to expect. Earlier in their captivity they'd tried the coffee from the machine, it had been 'so-so', not terrible, but not great either. Later he'd tried a chicken club sandwich which was excellent, now he craved something sweet.

“Any of you guys want anything?” O'Neill asked only to get three negative replies, “whatever,” he shrugged as he studied the refreshments menu, “we could really do with a couple of these in the gate room or something.”

“I'm guessing they work by rearranging mater at an atomic level,” Carter's voice cut into his contemplation of the menu, “that sandwich you ate earlier had probably once been a packing crate or...or something that you in all likelihood you really don't want to think about, Sir.”

“Whatever,” O'Neill repeated as he touched an item on the menu, a few seconds later he removed an icecream sundae from the replicator, “now look at that,” he gestured to the sundae, “if only 'our' replicators could do this sort of useful stuff instead of just replicating and killing people.”

Sitting down at the table, O'Neill listened to his team speculated about who their captors were. He didn't join in because 'a' he was eating and 'b' he didn't have anything new to add. They'd been 'locked up' in the cabin for a couple of hours or more and left pretty much to themselves. He'd tried to leave by the unlocked door but the two young women in their, so, totally neat armoured suits had politely but firmly prevented him from leaving and exploring the ship.

There was an entertainment unit in the cabin, after Carter had worked out how it worked, they'd watched some 'TV shows' that appeared to confirm that this was a society run by and containing almost exclusively women. How these women made more 'little women' without the participation of any males was still something of a mystery. O'Neill had watched some sort of historical, action adventure show that featured the exploits of a short, blonde, super strong warrioress called 'Buffy' of all things. This super-heroine went around the countryside killing monsters and saving the local farmers from a 'fate worse than death' at the hands of the almost exclusively 'very' male demonic baddies. The show kind of reminded him of 'Xena', but some of it was pretty graphic, real PG18 stuff. However, when they'd tried for a news channel they'd found it blocked.

Just when he was about half way through his sundae, O'Neill looked up at the sound of the door sliding open.

“So now the torture begins,” he muttered to himself, “and I'll never get to finish this really good icecream sundae.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” a small smile played around the lips of the young uniformed woman who'd come to their little home away from home, “but The General would like to see you now.”

Standing up, O'Neill studied the woman for a moment; she appeared to be in her mid-twenties, her long brown hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head, she had a clear but slightly pale complexion and really striking cornflower blue eyes. At about five-nine she radiated confidence and strength; probably a senior NCO, O'Neill mused, a veteran by the looks of the medal ribbons on the front of her light khaki blouse.

“Okay,” O'Neill gave a world weary sigh, “have it your way...take us to your leader.”

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

**Aboard the Reluctant.**

“Well, that turned out better than I'd expected,” O'Neill announced as he and his team returned to their quarters.

“Yes Sir,” Carter replied non-committally.

“Hey look,” O'Neill walked over to the table where their equipment had been neatly stacked, “we've got our stuff back and there were no thumb-screws or psychological torture, so I'm looking at this as a win for us...”

“Sir,” Carter turned a puzzled frown on O'Neill as she moved to collect her own gear and weapons from the table, “you didn't think it was all too good to be true?”

“Yeah Jack,” Daniel added his voice to that of Carter's, “didn't you think it strange that they promised so much for so little in return?”

“Daniel-Jackson,” Teal'c turned to face the younger man, “while I understand you and Major-Carter's reservations these are the first advanced race that we have met who seem willing to trade advanced weapons while wanting very little in return.”

“And we got to meet that Xander guy,” O'Neill said as he checked out his P90, he was sure it'd been stripped, cleaned and studied before being put back together and returned.

“Don't you think it odd,” Daniel slipped on his load carrier as he spoke, “that they were so eager to visit Earth?”

“No,” O'Neill replied, “in their place I'd want to see Earth, or at least the SGC.”

“In fact, Sir,” Carter chimed in, “making supplying us with technology dependent on them getting to visit Earth right now, don't you find that suspicious?”

“Yeah,” O'Neill nodded his head, “I do, but, what if they're telling the truth? What if what this General Kennedy said about them wanting to help us...

“Even though we're a society still dominated by men, I think she said,” Daniel reminded everyone.

“Yes Sir,” Carter agreed.

“Yeah there was that,” O'Neill conceded, “but that Xander guy looked as if he was fine...not down trodden or oppressed or anything.”

“I'd have liked to have talked to him alone,” Daniel said darkly.

“People!” O'Neill decided to bring this discussion to a close, “Look we can argue about this all we like once we're back at the SGC and like Teal'c says their _are_ willing to _give_ us advanced technology with no strings attached,” he turned to look at Carter, “Don't you want to find out how their 'Star Drives' work or those grav-packs that Sergeant-Major woman kept going on about?”

“Yes Sir,” Carter replied quietly, she was in fact very eager to get her hands on the advanced technology that was being offered to them.

“Jack,” once again Daniel thought it wise to be the voice of caution, “don't you think it strange that they appear very reluctant...and by the way, what sort of name is 'Reluctant' for a starship...?”

“I asked that myself,” Carter explained, “Sergeant-Major Summers said it was something about a 'Reluctant Hero', I got the impression she didn't really understand it herself.”

“Whatever,” Jack decided to put this discussion on hold, “I thought that General Kennedy seemed trustworthy and _soooo_ not lying, or a Goa'uld, she's like Hammond, but female, totally up-front and straight talking.”

“With all due respect, Sir,” Carter sighed ever so slightly, “she seemed like a scheming, conniving bitch to me...”

0=0=0=0

“Well, that went well I thought,” Kennedy smiled as she and Willow, Faith, Dawn and Xander sat around the conference table drinking replicated coffee.

“Yeah,” Willow agreed a little uncertainly, “but I thought that Colonel O'Neill guy seemed a little too eager to let us go back to this SGC place with them.”

“Yeah,” Faith nodded, “if I was their base security officer I wouldn't let you out of this 'gate room' place without doing some pretty deep an' invasive scans first.”

“Look,” this was from Xander, “these guys are desperate for high tech gear, they'll do almost anything.”

“I thought you said they were totally the 'good guys' who wouldn't go against their principles, just to get their hands on advanced tech,” Willow pointed out.

“Yeah I did say that didn't I?” Xander admitted with a frown.

“Which brings up another point,” Kennedy turned to look at Dawn, “if I decide to go ahead with the tech transfer, how many suits of power armour can you let me give them?”

“Well, Ma'am,” Dawn pondered the problem for a moment, “I've got five battle damaged suits that could be repaired and I can afford to hand over three new suits. That's enough for a section, we won't have to hand over any M-Tars their P90s are almost as good, I had the armourer take one apart and check it out. However, I've got a couple of the old fifty-cal LAGs cluttering up the armoury that I don't need, those can go.”

“Don't make yourself short Sergeant-Major,” Kennedy advised before turning to Willow, “what about the tech stuff?”

“I can have hard copy printed out in a couple of minutes, I assume the power armour will be handed over with their grave packs?”

“If this goes ahead, yes,” Kennedy confirmed.

“Then I'll just need to bundle everything up and I'm good to go,” Willow grinned at the thought of going through the stargate, “We can give them the training manuals too.”

“Sure, but let me have a list of what you'll be sending through,” Kennedy said before turning to speak to Faith.

“Faith, I'm leaving you behind because I want someone here who knows what's been going on in case something goes wrong.”

“No problemo, General,” Faith nodded, “I didn't like the idea of my body being stretched half way across the galaxy and across a couple of realities any-how.”

“Good, I...” Kennedy began but was interrupted by Willow.

“Hey, just a cotton picking moment!” Willow exclaimed.

“Lieutenant Command Rosenberg,” Kennedy smirked, “you have something to add?”

“Darn right I do...”

“That's 'darn right I do’, General'.”

“Whatever,” Willow shrugged, “you're talking like you're coming with, what happened to sending a small elite team?”

“I thought I'd be one of that small elite team,” Kennedy grinned like a naughty schoolgirl.

“But...!”

“Look, a slayer needs some adventure in her life,” Kennedy explained, “so, I'm in my sixties, but I'm still a slayer...and a General, so what I say goes, okay?”

“Okay,” Willow mumbled, Kennedy had played the 'General Card' so there was no arguing with her, life was totally unfair she told herself.

“Whatever,” Kennedy replied, “you might not like it, Willow, but _you_ don't have to tell Major Singh that I'm going...she'll demand that she goes with me or that I take all of Dawn's Marines as a bodyguard...”

“Yeah I get that,” Willow sulked, “but I was kinda looking forward to leading this 'away team' by myself.”

“You've led away teams before,” Faith pointed out.

“But not ones to alternate realities,” Willow pouted.

“So, now that's settled,” Kennedy sat back in her seat, “I want you, Willow and you, Dawn ready to go in an hour. Ship-side dress but with medal ribbons and all y'fancy badges. Everyone carries sidearms, Dawn,” she looked at her senior Marine, “we've got some Moosrab hand phasers in the armoury, right?”

“Yes, Ma'am,” Dawn nodded.

“You take one of those,” Kennedy ordered, “and everyone pack an overnight bag,” she looked directly at Willow, “that's one bag for one night away from home, okay?”

“Got it,” Willow replied still sulking a little.

“Erm...” Xander spoke up, he'd not said anything for what seemed like ages.

“Mr Harris?” Kennedy turned slowly to look at Xander.

“I'd like to go too,” Xander said breathlessly, “you might need my technical expertise.”

“That we might,” Kennedy agreed, “you're welcome to come along,” she turned to look at Dawn, “Sergeant-Major, issue Mr Harris an M22 I believe he's checked out to use one.”

“Yes Ma'am,” Dawn nodded.

“Okay then,” Kennedy stood up as did everyone else half a second later, “that's it, we'll meet in the shuttle bay in one hour,” again she looked at Dawn, “Sergeant-Major, can you make sure our guests are there as well?”

“On it Ma'am.”

“Good,” Kennedy sighed, “now I've got to tell Amber I'm going through the stargate without her...”

0=0=0=0

Lying in her sickbay bed, the entity that had once been 2nd Lt Pat Miller TAMC and was now the ‘god’ Kif, watched the compartment through slitted eyes. Until it was time to make her move she would continue the pretend to be unconscious. The host had given up control of her body with hardly a struggle before retreating to the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind. Although the host's body had been damaged it was a good, strong, healthy body that was easily repaired. It would serve Kif's needs until something better came along. In fact, assuming Kif could find a sarcophagus, she/he might keep this one for hundreds of years to come.

From the host's memories, Kif had discovered that the it came from a society made up almost entirely of women. Kif had also discovered that this female society was highly advanced, in many ways more advanced than the Goa'uld, they would not fall for the 'I am your god, worship me' trick without a fight. But did she (Kif had decided to use the female pro-noun) want these 'Terrans' to worship her as a god? If she became their leader she'd have a powerful force to use against the System Lords after she'd exterminated the race the host's people called the Shedu. In fact she noted that the Terrans already had the means to eliminate the entire Shedu race in only a few years fighting, but they were too weak minded to use the gift they'd been given. By the time that the nurse came to check on her, Kif had her plan for galactic domination mapped out, it would need refining but that could wait until she was up and about and accepted by these people. Feeling the nurse checking her pulse, Kif opened her eyes.

“Lt Miller!” the nurse smiled in surprise, “You're awake, how are you feeling?”

“Fine...” Kif smiled at the rather attractive nurse, “...a little sore but otherwise okay I suppose,” her host's memories told her what to say and how to behave, “when can I get up?”

“Not just yet,” the nurse smiled; from what she'd seen so far, Kif decided that she quite liked this society of women, if the nurse was anything to go by she expected to be able to have a little fun while she was taking over the galaxy, “I'll need to get the Doctor to check you out.”

“Then go get her...” Kif smiled; this all seemed too easy, it was then that she saw in a flash where all the Goa'uld had gone wrong before her.

Yes, it was nice to be worshipped like a god, but these people already had a god that they were quite devoted to. Surely it would be best to leave them to their goddess (who didn't appear to do very much) and take a more secular pathway to power?

“Nurse...?”

“Monday, Lieutenant, Gloria Monday...”

“Pretty name,” Kif smiled again, “have you got a girlfriend Nurse Gloria Monday?”

“If you're flirting with me Miz Miller,” Nurse Monday laughed, “you must be well on the way to recovery...now I'll just call Doctor Ostrow.”

Lying back on her pillows, Kif smiled to herself. The next few years were going to be interesting. All she had to do was fight the urge to try and become all powerful, not mention that she was in fact a god (something she felt sure would get her locked up in a room with padded walls) and become the war hero that would set her on the path to being the most powerful being in the galaxy! Stamping down hard on the urge to laugh manically, Kif waited for the doctor to come and pronounce her fit for duty.

0=0=0=0

Arriving in the shuttle bay, O'Neill's eyes went straight away to one of the sleek and deadly looking shuttle craft. From what he understood, the design philosophy behind the craft was similar to the old Soviet, Hind helicopter gunships. A powerful weapons platform capable of carry a squad of infantry or in this case a squad of power armoured marines. He couldn't wait to see the looks on the faces of the Goa'uld the first time they met an SG Team in powered suits deploying from one of these shuttles.

“Don't worry, Colonel.”

Jack turned to see General Kennedy walk over to him, he also saw Lt Cmd Rosenberg and Sergeant-Major Summers waiting by the open hatch of one of the shuttles.

“If our negotiations are successful we'll be handing you the plans so you can make your own Hydras. You'll be flying them in a couple of years.”

“So, you're not going to hand over a completed craft?” O'Neill asked.

“Not shuttles any way, other tech maybe,” General Kennedy led the way over to the shuttle, “It's been the Alliance's experience that its best to let less advanced societies back engineer high tech equipment.”

“I see,” O'Neill nodded; it was a pity that they wouldn't be flying one of these Hydra shuttles home, but they'd made some remarkable progress with Goa'uld technology, so he didn't see why back engineering this shuttle would be any more difficult.

“Carter!” O'Neill called as he went over to talk privately with his second in command, “We can build one of those,” he jerked his head at the Hydra, “right?”

“Sir?” Carter took a moment to look closely at the shuttle, “The airframe doesn't look like anything special, but I don't know what the tech it carries is like...”

“I have every confidence you'll work it out,” O'Neill explained.

Over by the shuttle, Willow watched as the Earth team came closer.

“Will you listen to that!?” Willow said under her breath.

“What, Ma'am?” Dawn raised an eyebrow.

“Don't you start ma'am-ing me, at least not in private,” Willow hissed back.

“I say again,” Dawn sighed, “listen to what?”

“The way he talks to her...”

“Who?”

“That O'Neill guy,” Willow grumbled, “'Carter!' Like she was his pet dog or something he doesn't even call her by her rank and she's way smarter than he is, why isn't she in charge?”

“Who knows,” Dawn shrugged, before giving her old friend a close look, “Hey! Have you got the hots for Major Carter?”

“Maybe,” Willow admitted, “she's smart and cute and brave and...”

“Totally hot, an' you wanna get her into your bunk like yesterday!”

“Am I totally that readable?” Willow asked miserably.

“Like a book.”

“Darn,” Willow sighed, “and why is it women in the here and now fall in lust so quickly?”

“We're not from the here and now,” Dawn pointed out, “but I know what you mean...”

“Maybe we caught it off them and how are you getting on with that Moosrab captain?”

“Haven't called her back yet...”

“But you're going to, right? You could do worse, even if she _is_ green.”

“Yeah I could be in a relationship with you!” Dawn smirked.

“Yuck!”

“Hey! What do you totally mean 'Yuck'?” Dawn demanded.

“I didn't mean 'yuck' in a yucky way,” Willow tried to explain, “but it'd be like I was making out with my little sister.”

“Whatever, just messing with you, I know what you mean and we better change the subject before the General hears us.”

“Got it Chief.”

“...just a short ride down to the surface, Colonel O'Neill,” Kennedy could be heard to say as she got closer to Willow and Dawn, “then its off through the stargate!”

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

**Through the Stargate.**

After travelling through the stargate (which had felt like a wild, interstellar roller-coaster ride) Dawn found herself standing at the top of a metal ramp that led down into a large chamber, this she told herself must be 'The Gate Room' on Earth. The room was big, she guessed that you could fit a Hydra shuttle inside with a little room to spare. The walls were grey concrete with a couple of green metal doors, one either side of the far end of the chamber. About half way up the wall in front of her was an observation window through which she could see technicians looking down at her.

The floor at the end of the ramp appeared to be full to bursting point with soldiers in camouflaged uniforms pointing guns amongst which were a couple of large calibre machine guns. The gunners watched her and the rest of the Alliance party intently over the tops of their weapons. It was then, as she took a step towards the 'welcoming committee', that she realised that she wasn't scared, in her career in the Marines a lot of people had pointed guns at her and she was kind of used to it by now. No, what was making her feel uneasy and uncomfortable and was making her right hand move slowly and without conscious thought towards her phaser was that the soldiers pointing their weapons at her were all male. 

It just seemed unnatural to her which she knew was stupid. Up until the age of sixteen she'd lived in a world where at least half of the population were male. Okay some of them were jerks, like some women were jerks, but on the whole most guys she'd known were okay. If things hadn't turned out the way they had she'd have probably ended up marrying one, but now... But now after more than ten years living in a future where a woman could live to advanced old age and have a large family without actually ever seeing a human male, it just felt weird, dangerous even.

Glancing to her left, Dawn saw that Willow and General Kennedy were having the same thoughts, the look on Kennedy's face was almost one of sheer terror. She'd been in the future for over forty years and she'd been a lesbian before she'd been hurled into the future. Although she claimed she'd never hated men, what she was seeing now must be causing fairly major mental overload. On the other hand Willow was standing there wide eyed with her mouth open.

“Wow...” Willow sighed almost too quietly for Dawn to hear, “...guys.”

By contrast, the look on Xander's face was one of...relief? O'Neill and his team were already half way down the ramp and O'Neill was calling for everyone to 'stand-down', which no one did, which was as it should be Dawn admitted. If she'd been in charge of such a sensitive security situation, no one would 'stand down' until the base commander told them to. By this point Xander was half way between the Earth and Terran parties, he turned to look back at the representatives of the Alliance military and made urgent gestures for them to stop staring and come on down the ramp.

“Erm...ladies,” Dawn whispered, “I think its time we totally stopped looking like a bunch of tourists and went down there an' said hello.”

“But there's guys,” Willow whispered, “I think I understand the Moosrab point of view now.”

“What?” Kennedy snapped out of her 'funk' and turned to glance at Willow, “Shoot them all? Not practicable or I'd guess desirable, I think the Chief has the right idea...lets go meet the natives and the first person to say, 'take me to your leader', gets sent back home so fast their feet won't touch the ground...okay? Follow me.”

Keeping together the three women walked down the ramp until they found themselves standing in front of a rotund, bald headed man in a light blue shirt covered in silver coloured badges and several rows of medal ribbons. On his shoulders he wore dark blue epaulettes each adorned with two silver, five pointed stars.

“General Hammond,” O'Neill spoke from beside the Earth General, “may I introduce, General Kennedy, Alliance Army,” Kennedy stepped forward and shook the male general's hand, “Lieutenant Commander Rosenberg, Alliance Star Force,” Willow straightened up and saluted the Earth general who smartly returned her salute, “Sergeant-Major Summers, Alliance Marine Corps,” Dawn snapped off a parade, rigid salute that almost made a very small sonic boom; once more Hammond returned the salute with equal precision, before shaking her hand, “And finally,” O'Neill continued, “and by no means least, Mr Xander Harris, a civilian consultant working with the Alliance armed forces.”

“Pleased to meet you, General,” Xander stepped forward and shook General Hammond's hand.

O'Neill turned around looking very pleased with himself as the rest of his team stood behind him looking just a little embarrassed.

“Now the introductions are complete,” Hammond said in his warm Texan accent, “if you'd like to join me in my conference room,” he gestured to one of the sliding metal doors, “where I can properly welcome you to Earth.”

As he was talking SG1 were handing over their weapons and equipment to the soldiers who were still standing around watching the visitors warily.

“Thank-you General,” Kennedy smiled graciously before adding, “Ladies...and gentleman,” she nodded at Xander, “as a sign of good faith I think it only fair that we hand over our own sidearms.”

Pulling her pistol from it holster, Kennedy handed over her M22 pistol. With hardly any show of reluctance Willow and Xander did the same, while Dawn, like any good Terran Marine was loath to hand over her personal weapon followed her general's lead. The Earthers wouldn't be able to use the phaser, it had a bio-lock on it that prevented anyone but herself from using it. After this little ceremony the Alliance party followed General Hammond and O'Neill out through one of the metal doors and up some stairs, through a control room and up some more stairs until they were finally in a largish and fairly comfortable looking conference room where light refreshments had been set out for them.

“I believe that your physical needs are the same as our own,” General Hammond addressed his remarks to Kennedy. 

A certain amount of communication had been allowed between SG1 and the SGC while SG1 had been guests aboard the Reluctant. This was mainly to stave off any rescue attempt that the SGC might make, which would have inevitably resulted in the violent and bloody deaths of the rescuers.

“So, feel free to eat or drink anything you want,” Hammond completed what he was saying.

“Before we do anything,” Kennedy replied smoothly, “I have two...I hesitate to say demands, but your willingness to comply with them will set the tone for the rest of our stay here...”

“Go on,” Hammond said reasonably.

“See told you,” Carter said loud enough for only Daniel and Teal'c to hear, “conniving bitch!”

“First I need to know the date...here on Earth, today.”

“Why its the twenty-seventh of July,” Hammond replied slightly mystified.

“And the year?”

“The year as we calculate it is Two-thousand-and-one,” Hammond added before asking, “that was easy what was your second question?”

“What's the airspeed velocity of a Swallow?” Dawn sniggered under her breath once again displaying her knowledge of Monty Python.

“We'd like to see a map of southern California...” Kennedy continued while casting Dawn a warning glance.

“For heaven's sake why?” O'Neill blurted out.

“Maybe they want to go surfing,” Carter whispered to her friends.

“Or maybe they want to visit Hollywood,” Daniel Jackson added with a smirk.

“Southern California?” General Hammond repeated.

“Yes in the Nation State known as The United States of America,” Kennedy clarified as she realised that she must sound quite insane.

“If this is two-thousand-and-one,” Willow spoke softly into Kennedy's ear, “Buffy and I must have just started our first semester at UC Sunnydale.”

“I'm sure we've got a map somewhere,” Hammond replied with a frown, he turned to one of the airmen who were guarding the exits, “Airman, find a map of California...there's probably one in the base library,” he hinted.

With hardly any hesitation, after all the guard had seen weirder things while he'd been posted to the SGC, he headed off to the base library.

“Nice place you've got here,” Xander said into the embarrassing silence that had fallen over the room.

Both Carter and Willow almost succeeded in stifling the giggles that burst from their mouths.

“Yes,” Hammond replied still unsure why anybody would want to see a map of southern California before they started important negotiations and how did aliens from half way across the galaxy even know about California? “most of it was built before the Air Force set up Stargate Command.” 

“Erm...” Daniel stepped forward to help out General Hammond, “...our Alliance friends seem to have a surprising amount of knowledge about the SGC.”

It hadn't been so much the answers SG1 had given during their first meeting with the Alliance but the questions they'd been asked which seemed to have been for confirmation of things they'd already known. Before General Hammond had a chance to ask how the Alliance knew about the SGC and by extension Earth, he was interrupted by the return of the airman clutching a map in his hand.

“Best we've got, General,” the airman said as he handed the map to Hammond and retreated to his position by the door.

Unfolding the map, General Hammond laid it out on the table.

“There you are,” he said formally, “a map of the State of California.”

Kennedy studied the map, it looked like she remembered California, but she'd never really lived there and it'd been more than forty years since she'd seen a map of 'old' California.

“No sign of Sunnydale...” Willow said as she traced her finger along the coastline north and west of Los Angeles.

“Sunnydale?” O'Neill mouthed to his team mates.

Sam and Daniel shrugged their ignorance while Teal'c continued to look on inscrutably.

“...just this place called Santa Barbara,” Willow stood up straight again and looked at Kennedy expectantly.

No, Sunnydale, huh? Kennedy asked herself, did that mean there was no Hellmouth too?

“Thank-you, General,” Kennedy turned to face Hammond once more, “I...” for a moment Kennedy didn't know how to explain what had just happened, so she didn't bother, “...I think we can start preliminary discussions. Because of the time lag between my Task Force and Army headquarters on...” Kennedy stopped herself from saying 'Earth', “...on our home world, I'm authorised to make any deal between our two...erm?” 

Struggling for the right phraseology she turned to Willow.

“Organisations?” Willow suggested.

“Thank-you Willow that'll do for now,” Kennedy turned back to Hammond, “no doubt both our governments will attempt to muddy the waters at a later date.”

“Indeed they will,” Hammond smiled.

“See, there you are,” Carter whispered to Daniel once again, “conniving bitch. I bet she had everyone bring those weapons along just so she could hand them in to show how 'nice' and 'harmless' they are!”

“Sam, this isn't like you,” Daniel frowned.

“Whatever,” Carter turned and savagely attacked a sandwich.

“In the mean time,” Hammond continued, “its our standard operating procedure that all arrivals through the stargate must submit to a basic medical examination...”

“I understand, General,” Kennedy nodded, “it's our SOP too, plus you no doubt want to make sure that we are what we are and not tentacled alien invaders in disguise...”

“I wouldn't quite have put it like that,” Hammond laughed, “but yes, I'm sure you understand I have the safety of this base to consider and ultimately the safety of the planet.”

“Don't worry,” Kennedy smiled graciously, “we'll submit to a medical examination on one condition...”

“Which is?”

“...that we're examined by female personnel,” Kennedy explained, “Mr Harris could be examined by a male doctor...

“Hey!” Xander called out from where he was helping himself to a Coke, “I've no problem with women doctors.”

“There,” Kennedy's smile got wider, “I hope that doesn't cause you any problems, General, but its a deal breaker, no female doctor no medical examination and you'll have to watch out for those cunningly concealed tentacles!”

“Oh my god!” Carter groaned quietly, “Come on General don't you see she's wrapping you around her little finger...” she turned to Daniel, “...you don't think she's Hathor do you?”

“Our Chief Medical Officer is in fact a woman,” Hammond explained, “Dr Janet Fraiser and most of her medical staff are female, if it makes you feel more comfortable I'm sure she won't mind having any male staff leave the medical centre while you're there.”

“You're too kind, General,” Kennedy's smile would have out shone the sun if they hadn't been buried under millions of tons of rock.

This General Hammond appeared to be a very fatherly figure, Kennedy told herself and she had always been able to get everything she'd wanted out of her father.

“Give me a break,” Carter muttered under her breath as she looked across the room only to find the red-haired Star Force officer looking right back at her.

0=0=0=0


	11. Chapter 11

**Aboard the TASS Reluctant.**

Sitting at the small work-station in her quarters, Kif-Miller stared in disbelief at the images the computer was displaying to her unbelieving eyes. The doctor had been amazed at the speed with which her injuries had healed and she'd asked Kif some strange questions that she didn't fully understand, mainly if she was something called a 'Slayer'. Replying that she was just a normal healthy Marine seemed to satisfy the doctor's curiosity however. Doctor Ostrow examined Kif and declared that she was well enough to return to duties, but only 'light duties', she was to return to her quarters and rest for a couple of days.

On finding her quarters, Kif had spent a productive few hours familiarising herself with the host's society and history. The computer, which she discovered was connected to the ship's main computer which appeared to be 'alive' gave her access to everything she wanted to know about these Terrans. However, the information that she received was extremely disturbing; there was obviously something very wrong with the universe.

First, these Terrans claimed to come from the Tau'ri home world, 'Earth', but, this was impossible, Kif told herself. The Tau'ri didn't have a fleet of hundreds, possibly thousands of starships unless this was some sort of impossibly clever deception plan by the Tau'ri. Kif discarded the idea almost as quickly as it had entered her mind. The fact that the Terrans had been fighting a long and bloody war against a race called the 'Shedu', a race that Kif had never heard of. This would suggest that there was something even stranger than the Tau'ri being able to conceal entire fleets of advanced starships and armies of soldiers each equipped with powerful armoured suits. Plus there was the perplexing question of where all the Tau'ri, or in this case 'Terran' males had disappeared to?

From personnel experience, Kif knew that almost all Tau'ri soldiers were male, yet so far all the ones she had seen were females. It was this last piece of intelligence that convinced Kif more than anything that she was in a completely different reality. The Goa'uld had know for thousands of years of the possibility of alternate universes, but had failed to find a way of crossing between them, even the Ancients had failed in this, as far as any Goa'uld knew. But, somehow Apophis had managed to find a gate way into this familiar and yet unfamiliar realm. The possibilities exploded in Kif's mind like a bright light had been switched on. If everything she suspected was true and she had no reason to doubt that it was, this meant that she, 'Kif the Great' was the only Goa'uld in this reality.

The possibilities were boundless, Kif smiled to herself, here there were no other system lords to battle against. There was a race that had advanced technologies; an enemy that had already united this race of women and given them the 'need' and 'focus' to conquer the entire galaxy and put it under the hand of one leader. One race, one homeland and one leader...

This time a burst of maniacal laughter did erupt from her throat, but Kif managed to stifle it before it went too far, she'd have to watch out for things like that if she was going rule the galaxy. Already she was learning not to let her voice go all deep and echoy. There was also the thing about how the Goa'uld treated all lesser races as slaves. This she couldn't do, for her plan for galactic domination to work the Terrans must believe that she was simply a gifted leader from their own race. Yes it would take her hundreds of years and without a sarcophagus many new hosts, but as an old host died she could prepare the way for a new host to take over from her.

Luckily the Terran Alliance left local government to the nation states and colony planets that made up the Alliance. There were of course basic laws and 'human rights' that all governments had to adhere to, but if one nation or planet within the Alliance became powerful enough there was no reason why a form of government that suited Kif's needs couldn't take over or at-least influence how the Alliance was ruled. Something like what the Terrans called a monarchy would suit her needs very well.

But first, before any of her plans could be set in motion, Kif needed to ensure that no other Goa'ulds made their way into this reality. The simplest way to ensure this was to destroy all the stargates in this reality. Having read the latest combat and after action reports, Kif knew that the Terrans believed there were only six stargates in their part of the galaxy. One was almost certainly beyond use, having been buried under millions of tons of molten rock. The other five had been 'destroyed', but the Terrans (at least the Science officer aboard the ship Kif was on) believed that perhaps those gates weren't as 'destroyed' as they'd at first thought. Their plan was to go and dig up these gates and drop them into a sun or black hole along with the gate on the planet below. It seemed that the Terrans wanted nothing to do with gate travel, which fitted in perfectly with Kif's plans.

Turning back to the computer interface, Kif started to do some research on these Replicants she'd seen mentioned in other documents. The Replicates appeared to be superior humans that were 'grown' in factories rather than born in the normal way. This brought up another subject that needed close examination, just how, with apparently no males, did these Terrans reproduce? However, just as she was calling up information about the Replicants her door buzzer sounded.

“Damn...” Kif muttered as she switched off her computer interface, turning to glance at the door she called, “...come in.”

If she wanted to continue the pretence of being a normal, if gifted, human being, she needed to learn not to throw a violent fit every time something happened to displease her. The door slid open to reveal the figure belonging to Nurse Gloria Monday.

“Nurse Monday!” Kif smiled, now this was the sort of interruption she didn't mind.

“Lieutenant?” Nurse Monday smiled from the threshold, “May I come in?”

“Please do,” Kif stood up to greet her visitor, just like it was customary for normal Terrans who hadn't been taken over by Goa'uld to do, “its nice to see you again.”

“Yeah,” Gloria entered the small cabin and looked around, “Doc Ostrow wanted someone to check on you so I volunteered.”

“You volunteered?” Kif checked the meaning of the word with her host's memory, did this mean that this rather attractive nurse wanted to be in her company, it would appear that she did, “Please,” Kif gestured to the only chair in the room, “sit down, as you can see I'm well on the road to recovery.”

“Yes I see that,” Nurse Monday replied as she went over and sat down on Kif's bed, “but I think I need to give you a _full_ physical while I'm here.”

When Kif had been a male he'd always enjoyed sex with human females, he'd had many human concubines from whom he'd taken his rather sadistic pleasures, but something was telling her that her old ways weren't suited to the present situation, Plus, the new Kif was rather curious to find out what sex between two females was like. Sitting down next to Nurse Monday, Kif put her arm around the human woman's shoulder before kissing her on the lips.

“Nurse Monday!” Kif gasped, the simple kiss had set her body on fire with desire, she wanted more but was prevented my the nurse saying something.

“Call me Gloria, can I call you Pat?”

“I'd prefer it if you called me, Kif...” Kif said as she put her hand on Gloria's firm breast.

“Kif? That's an odd name.”

“It's a family nick-name,” Kif replied hurriedly as she pushed Gloria down onto the bed.

0=0=0=0

Lying there in her new lover's arms, Gloria Monday smiled to herself, not only had the sex been surprisingly good she now had the Goa'uld inhabiting Lt Miller's body completely under her control. Having sensed the parasite as soon as it was brought on board she'd decided to destroy it. But, she had then discovered its deepest plans. To her shock, Gloria had discovered that the Goa'uld's plans matched her own for the future of woman-kind. However in her version of her plan for Galactic domination there would be no genocide (unless you were a demon or Shedu) and more freedom and self-determination.

Perhaps these two plans could be made to work together. After all she needed a figure head, she was a goddess not a military leader; she liked babies and flowers more than guns and starships. Such things were merely a means towards an end. An end that would see the human race (or at lest the female part of it) ruling the galaxy. What better way to achieve this than to let the Goa'uld continue with its plans. The only difference would be that she would be there to guide Kif every step of the way. First as her lover then as her loyal wife and consort. It would take years, but she was eternal and quite honestly she needed a project to occupy her time, it would also take many different disguises, but that was easy for a goddess.

After all wasn't she 'The Good Earth'? Gia, Kali, Ishtar, Athena and a hundred other goddesses, The Great Mother, Goddess of All?

0=0=0=0

**General Kennedy's Room at the SGC.**

Before she joined General Kennedy, Willow and Xander at the table, Dawn checked that there was no one listening at the door. The two SGC SFs who were 'guarding' the General's quarters were a respectful two or three yards further down the corridor. Satisfied that no one would be putting their ear to the key hole, Dawn shut the door and went to sit on the vacant chair at the General's table.

“All clear General,” Dawn reported.

“Good,” Kennedy turned her gaze from Dawn to Willow, “Willow?”

“On it,” Willow replied before making a magical gesture and repeating a short sentence in her bad ‘Pigeon-Latin’, “There,” Willow said after a moment, “one privacy spell in place.”

“Good,” Kennedy smiled, “I knew there was a reason I’d brought a witch along.”

“Totally,” Willow agreed with a firm nod of her head, “if we'd brought an electronic jammer no doubt it would have been taken away like our weapons. Anyway the spell is way better than a jammer.”

“Do tell,” Xander smiled after winking conspiritorialy at Dawn and Kennedy.

“Look,” Willow started to explain, “with a jammer all the SGC guys would be seeing and hearing would be electronic mush. With the spell as far as their concerned we're playing cards and talking about the recording of the last annual Army versus Marines rugby match sent out from Earth.”

“That'll convince them we're all homicidal lunatics,” Dawn laughed; the last game had been a particularly bloody contest with the Marines winning by only one point.

“How long will the spell last?” Kennedy asked as she gave Dawn a hard look out of the corner of her eye; she'd lost a sizeable amount of money due to the Marine win.

“Lets say as long as I'm breathing the spell will keep running,” Willow explained, “I'm really a very good witch...y'know I miss doing the magics. But, with all the hi-tech stuff around I don't need to use it much, I don't even get to charm warts any more.”

For a payment of five cents, Willow could make a wart disappear and not even leave a mark.

“Good,” Kennedy interrupted before Willow could continue with her, 'I miss being a proper witch' babble, “the reason I asked you here was so I can explain my plan for our visit here.”

Everyone nodded their understanding.

“Okay,” Kennedy continued, “Willow I want you to study their tech, work with that Major Carter woman. This is supposed to be a trade, weapons and know-how for something that these SGC people have. I doubt you'll find anything but you never know...” Kennedy shifted her gaze to Dawn and Xander, “...I want you two to go to this Santa Barbara place and check it out and make doubly sure that there isn't a Hellmouth and a girl called Buffy who fights the forces of darkness on a nightly basis.”

“Excuse me General,” Willow said formally, “wouldn't it be better for me to go checking for Hellmouths?”

“Yes it would,” Kennedy agreed, “but you're my tech girl and I think you're talents would be better used here.” Kennedy turned her attention back to Dawn and Xander, “Obviously the SGC aren't going to let a couple of aliens roam around one of their towns without an escort so you'll have to work your mission under the eyes of their personnel, okay?”

“Got that, General,” Dawn replied.

“I'll run interference while Dawn does her detective thing,” Xander volunteered.

“While we're doing all this stuff,” Willow said, “what will you be doing, General?”

“I'll be running interference for you all,” Kennedy announced, “no doubt they'll want to know as much about us as they can, I expect that Doctor Jackson will be the one asking the questions.”

“What'll you tell him?” Xander asked.

“As much of the truth as I can, but I think they've already decided there's something hinky with our story. But, I'll stick with the 'we're aliens from an Earth-like planet' story for as long as I can, but like I say that might not last. Eventually I might have to tell them the whole truth.”

“About alternate Earths or how they might be our past?” Willow wanted clarification.

“That's the one,” Kennedy agreed with a nod.

0=0=0=0

**Aboard the TASS Reluctant.**

Lying on her bunk, Kif wondered if the feelings she was experiencing now were what the humans referred to as 'love'. The sex she'd had with Gloria had been the best sex she'd ever had, in fact it was more than just sex it was something special and already Kif wanted to spend the rest of Gloria's life with her. Of course Gloria would grow old and die long before her own host's body had deteriorated enough that she'd need to find a new host. Frowning Kif wondered if these Terrans had a method of ageing artificially.

Then there was the problem of both herself and Gloria being in the military. It seemed that the Terrans had a bewildering array of regulations concerning sexual relations between members of their armed forces. But what it boiled down to was; that as long as the two parties were in different chains of command there was basically no problem. The idea that you had to make your choice of sexual partners dependent on your branch of service made Kif laugh out loud. However, there was something else she needed to worry about, Gloria was enlisted personnel, while she, Kif-Miller was a commissioned officer. While relationships between enlisted and commissioned ranks weren't banded, they _were_ disapproved of. This made Kif frown, perhaps she could get Gloria promoted so she was at least a senior enlisted rank.

0=0=0=0


	12. Chapter 12

**General E Kennedy.**

Stepping through the doorway, Kennedy paused for a moment before turning to confront the younger man who was following her. It was a large room with drab, grey, concrete walls. The floor had some sort of shiny covering, also grey; the only furniture was a metal table and two uncomfortable looking metal chairs.

“Dr Jackson,” Kennedy smiled mirthlessly at the archaeologist and linguist, “if I was a suspicious woman I'd say this was an interrogation room...” her eyes went cold for a moment, “...I'm not being interrogated am I?”

“Of course not!” Daniel squeezed past Kennedy so he was standing fully in the room, “But you're right this is one of the rooms we use to interrogate prisoners, but...”

“But?” Kennedy considered her options, one of which was to slay the bespectacled man where he stood and break out of this underground prison; a moment's thought and a deep calming breath convinced her that death and mayhem weren't needed...yet.

“But its got all the recording equipment already set up,” Daniel explained lamely.

“I see,” as Kennedy turned to face the room again she did indeed see that a camera and a separate microphone plus recording equipment had been set up, she suspected that there were other recording devices hidden around the room.

“If you'd like to take a seat,” Daniel gestured to one of the chairs, “then we can begin...”

Moving briskly across the room, Kennedy sat down in the chair facing the door and made herself as comfortable as she could while Daniel took his seat facing her.

“Now, for the tape would you introduce yourself?” Daniel asked as he switched on the tape and the camera.

“General E Kennedy,” Kennedy announced, “Alliance Army.”

Once again, Kennedy omitted the fact that she worked for the _Terran_ Alliance Army, this insignificant, yet extremely important piece of information would only be revealed once she was sure that this Earth wasn't the Earth of her past. All the other members of her team were under strict orders not to reveal the Alliance's origins. 

“And the 'E' stands for...?”

“That's classified,” Kennedy replied; no fiend from hell would make her tell Daniel what the 'E' stood for.

“Classified?” Daniel asked; he remembered that there were societies were it was common not to tell a stranger your full name because of the belief that it could give them power over you.

“It's not important,” Kennedy decided that the time had come to get Daniel Jackson off the subject of her first name, “I enlisted in the Alliance Army at the age of nineteen. After completing my basic training I was selected for advanced training for the Alliance special forces...”

The fact that she'd been selected because she was a slayer and she'd joined the Special Slayer Service was something that Daniel didn't need to know either.

“...after about six years in the special forces I got my commission...I was promoted to the rank of general nine years ago after nearly fifteen years of service. My last posting was as Military Governor of the planet Novalba.”

“This planet was part of the Alliance?”

“Yes, but it shouldn't have been.”

“Could you expand on that, please?” Daniel asked.

Kennedy considered her reply for a moment before deciding that she wouldn't be giving away anything classified.

“Novalba was admitted to the Alliance due, in main, to the influence of several megacorps and one notorious law firm,” Kennedy explained, “The planet already had a human population in excess of twenty-five million, a planetary government of sorts and had its own technology base.”

“So this world was already inhabited by humans when the Alliance arrived?” Daniel asked wanting clarification.

“Yes,” Kennedy nodded, “the original human inhabitants had been taken there by demons from our home world many hundreds of years before.”

“Demons?”

“Yes.”

“The Goa'uld?” it had been Daniel's experience that many societies mistook the Goa'uld for demons, although it was odd that an advanced society, one capable of building advanced weapons and even starships would.

“No,” Kennedy shook her head, “these were real demons,” she noted the look of disbelief in Daniel's eyes, “in fact as monsters go they were reasonably well behaved demons, Yes they used women as sex slaves, in fact all women on the planet were the slaves of the demon population. But the women didn't seem to mind, in fact when a plague wiped out the demon population it appears that the women were really quite upset about it. We often find that there is a certain amount of 'love' between demons and their human subjects, in fact on some planets the human population is often well treated, of course that doesn't save them,” Kennedy smiled, “the demons that is.”

“It doesn't,” Daniel asked slowly.

“Nuke them from orbit, as the old saying goes,” Kennedy explained, “its the only way to be sure.”

“You're telling me the Alliance bombs these demon-human civilisations with nuclear weapons?”

“Of course,” Kennedy shrugged, “after over a thousand years of being tortured, killed, used as the special ingredient in some spell or used as sexual playthings plus all the forced labour, woman-kind has developed a sort of, 'shoot first and ask questions later' policy where demons are concerned.” 

“You keep referring to these aliens as demons, why?”

“Because most of them are,” Kennedy replied simply, “but some of them aren't. I've felt for some time that the Alliance military are too quick to bomb some new race without first checking to see if they really are demons. I shudder to think of how many sentient races we've exterminated over the years, you know we nearly wiped out the Moosrab?”

“The who?”

“The Moosrab,” Kennedy repeated, “green skinned humanoid females, who are now one of our closes allies.”

“What convinced you not to nuke them from orbit?” Daniel wanted to know.

“The big, powerful, heavily armed system defence ships were a good argument against hostilities,” Kennedy said with a grin, “plus the fact that they'd been helping human women escape from their demonic oppressors for centuries.”

“I see,” Daniel paused for a moment, he didn't think the US government would sign any sort of treaty with the Alliance, he decided to change the subject, “You mentioned something about spells, you believe in magic?”

“Of course I believe in magic,” Kennedy laughed, “for a couple of years when I was younger my girlfriend was a powerful witch, in fact it was her death fighting demonic forces that was a factor in my enlisting.”

“A witch?”

“Uh-huh, and as I say she was a pretty powerful one.”

“Then how did she die, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Lead poisoning,” Kennedy replied; of course Willow wasn't dead, but for most of her life Kennedy had believed that she'd been killed by The First's agents, “Even a powerful witch can't stop all the bullets all of the time.”

“And these witches do magic?”

“Of course,” Kennedy noted the look of disbelief that had appeared, once again, on Daniel's face, “look,” she took a deep breath, “I'm no expert, but magic is sort of a branch of mathematics and some other weird stuff, I think harmonics might come into it...”

“Harmonics?”

“Yeah, if you chant a spell correctly it works, like I say I'm no expert. Also some witches can twist and bend the laws of physics like they say, 'witches _can_ break the laws of physics' if they're powerful enough. Of course nowadays magic has been mostly relegated to the realms of novelty. Our tech has now got to the point that where most primitive peoples mistake it for magic anyway.”

“What god or gods do you believe in or don't you believe in any gods?”

“Most people believe in The Great Goddess, Mother of All, personally I don't, well not much, you'd have to ask other people about that. In the Alliance what you do or don't believe in is a matter for your own conscience. I will say that almost all people at least ones from...our home planet believe in The First, that's the First Evil, who must be fought so as to prevent his reappearance in our universe.”

“The First Evil?” Daniel made a note on the page of the notebook in front of him.

“It's generally believed that the First caused the wars that led to the almost complete destruction of civilisation on my home world. It was only by the narrowest of margins that it was defeated and then only at great cost. No one wants to risk another incursion by The First into our reality that's why I'm in command of Task Force Sixty-nine...”

“Task Force Sixty-nine?” Daniel raised a questioning eyebrow.

“The Task Force's mission is to identify any incursion made by the First and destroy it, failing that to delay it until heavier units arrive to deal with the problem.”

“And you really believe this is likely?”

“Certainly,” Kennedy nodded, “it would just be like the First to attack while we're at a critical stage in our war with the Shedu.”

“The Shedu?”

“Winged, technologically advanced demons,” Kennedy shrugged, “they probably aren't demons but they do seem intent on exterminating all non-Shedu intelligent life in this part of the Galaxy. To be perfectly honest, until the Moosrab Confederation joined the war on our side it was quite possible that the Shedu would win.”

“Why was that?” Daniel wanted to know as he made several more notes in his notebook.

“Basically they can out breed us,” Kennedy shrugged, “but now with the Moosrab on side and one or two factors that I'm not going to talk about, the future is looking brighter.”

“Okay,” Daniel paused for a moment as he decided whether he was going to ask about the elephant in the room, “now I'm curious, whenever you've referred to human race you only seem to refer to the female part of it, why is that?”

“That's simply because that's all there is...mostly...”

“Mostly?”

“I don't suppose there's any harm in telling you,” Kennedy sighed; as she'd often said she'd never hated men, in fact she sort of missed them, “Well over a thousand years ago towards the end of the war against the First. The First realised it was losing and either released a biological weapon or cast a particularly powerful spell, no one knows which for sure. The effect of this weapon or spell was to turn all men into homicidal rapists while reducing them to little better than unthinking animals...okay some small minded people might ask, 'what's changed?', I'm not one of them. Luckily the effects weren't instantaneous, although I think they were supposed to be, anyway the women of that time armed and organised themselves. It quickly became apparent that whatever had happened wasn't reversible so they wiped out the male population only keeping enough alive to breed with under controlled conditions.”

“Controlled?” Daniel gulped.

“It mainly involved chaining the 'man' down and 'riding the beast' as it was called.”

“Riding the beast?” Daniel frowned before his imagination filled in the blanks, “Oh yeah I get it...”.

“Nowadays everything is much more civilised,” Kennedy explained with a sigh, “now if you want to get pregnant you just go to a Family Planning Clinic and let one of the nurses impregnate you, personally I've never felt the urge to breed.”

“Okay...”

“Of course the spell or weapon had an effect on women too.”

“It did?” Daniel raised an eyebrow as he wondered what other horrors were about to be unfolded.

“Yes, after the release of whatever it was, ninety-nine percent of all babies born are now female,” Kennedy didn't think he needed to know about the percentage that grew up to be slayers.

“So your society is made up almost entirely of women and their daughters?”

“Of course,” Kennedy nodded, “but we're not like the Moosrab they, exterminated all their males hundreds of years ago.”

“Then how do they...”

“Breed?” Kennedy shrugged, “Something called the 'Bean of Life', don't ask me what it is, no one except the Moosrab know for sure, I only know it doesn't work on humans.”

“Right...” Daniel took a long minute to review what he'd been told as he glanced at the notes he'd made, “...from what you've told me and meaning no disrespect, I don't think our government would sign any sort of treaty with the Alliance...”

“It was the exterminating alien races thing wasn't it?” Kennedy asked.

“Something like that,” Daniel agreed.

“I knew we were being too quick on the nuclear release button,” Kennedy sighed heavily, “whatever...”

“Whatever?” Daniel said a little hotly, “You talk about destroying entire societies across the universe and all you can say is, 'whatever' when I tell you there's not going to be a treaty!”

“You misunderstand me, Doctor Jackson.”

“I do? Tell me how I misunderstood anything you said?”

“Dr Jackson,” Kennedy said formally, “you seem to be under the mistaken belief that the Alliance wants any form of treaty with Earth.”

“You don't?”

“No,” Kennedy shook her head, “what I'm suggesting is a one off exchange of information and some hard tech to help you in your fight against the Goa'uld. Once this exchange is completed I intend to destroy all the known stargates in our part of the galaxy. We have no interest in gate travel, quite frankly we can do without any more conflicts. What I'm suggesting is nothing more that a private agreement between myself, Task Force Sixty-nine and the SGC. After the exchange is completed I sincerely hope never to see any of you again and I'm sure you will never want to come into contact with the Alliance again and I can almost guarantee that you won't.”

“You're not interested in a treaty or gate travel?”

“Correct, in fact,” Kennedy glanced at her watch, “as soon as I get the reports from Lieutenant Commander Rosenberg, Sergeant-Major Summers and Mr Harris on their return from Santa Barbara. As long as everything checks out, I'll arrange the transfer and leave...”

“I'm curious...”

“Take it from me,” Kennedy smirked, “in my world you would be 'curious'...”

“Whatever,” Daniel shrugged off the interruption, “why Santa Barbara?

“Erm...” Kennedy quickly remembered the cover story they'd agreed on. “...you may think my people are a bunch of murders...”

“No!” Daniel exclaimed, “It's just...”

“It's just that we nuke people a lot,” Kennedy smiled, “but I also happen to now that you...erm...Earthers, aren't exactly lilly white...death camps anyone? No,” Kennedy held up her hand to forestall Daniel's objections, “when contacting a human population for the first time its often beneficial to study some normal town or city to see what the society is really like...and not what that society would like you to see.”

“And whether it comes up to your exacting standards of genocide?”

“You do know I could kill you in an instant, Dr Jackson,” Kennedy said calmly, “and the two guards outside? The fact that I'm sitting in a room with a male makes my skin crawl. In fact all the males on this facility makes me want to kill and not stop killing until either you're all dead or you kill me...”

Although Kennedy hadn't been born into the 'world of women' she'd lived in it and had defended it for more than forty years. Her attitudes had changed over the years until she might as well have been born into the society she now served.

“...but I don't, that's what makes us better than animals, demons and dare I say it men. Now do you want the weapons and tech we're offering or not? Remember this is a one off, no strings attached trade, once its completed we're gone. If we ever meet again it'll probably be another Alliance commander who's likely to shoot first and count the bodies later and smile as she does so because she'll be thinking of all the women she'll have saved from servitude to men. You're lucky you meet me first, the Moosrab wanted to shoot you on sight...in fact they still do!”

“Yeah,” Daniel looked down at his notes for a moment, “I'll have to discuss this with General Hammond...”

“I like General Hammond,” Kennedy announced unexpectedly, “even if he is a male...”

“...but I think a one off trade could be arranged.”

“Assuming you've got anything we want!”

0=0=0=0


	13. Chapter 13

**Lieutenant Commander Rosenberg.**

“I really don't think you've got much in the way of tech that we want,” Willow announced as she finished reading through the data summaries that Sam Carter had prepared her.

The two women were seated in Sam's lab, a large room crowded with odd looking devices, books, computers and parts of a motorcycle.

“I did blow up a sun once you know,” Sam said under her breath, “its not like I'm using flint tools and drawing animals on the walls.”

“You did...you're not!?” Willow looked up and gave Sam a hopeful look, blowing up suns would almost certainly be useful in the war against the Shedu, “How did you do that?”

“Well,” Sam thought about giving a full explanation, but almost as quickly rejected the idea, “I used a stargate and...”

“A stargate?” Willow interrupted, “Not some cunningly constructed device or bomb?”

“No, we...” once again Sam found herself being cut off before she could say anything more.

“Pity,” Willow sighed; she knew of Kennedy's plans for the stargates in their home reality, although she might change her mind once she found out about the possibility of using them as weapons, “if it had been a bomb...”

“Bombs?” Sam said a little sharply, “You want bombs?”

“Uh-huh,” Willow nodded, a few years ago she wouldn't have dreamed of going shopping for bigger and better bombs, but fighting the Shedu had altered her outlook on life quite dramatically.

“We've found a way of enhancing the power of our nuclear weapons with naqahdah...”

“Naqahdah, naqahdah...” Willow repeated as she shuffled through the summary sheets she'd been given, “AH!” she found the piece of paper she was looking for, “When I saw this I thought it looked familiar...”

“It did?” Sam asked.

“I'd have to do some tests of course but your 'Naqahdah' sounds a lot like our Element four-five-one, its an important component in the construction of our FTL drives.”

“We could trade you some...” Sam began to explain eagerly thinking she'd found something the Alliance needed.

“No need,” Willow gave a sad smile, she hated to keep on crushing this attractive woman's hopes, “we have loads of the stuff.” Perhaps, Willow thought, if this reality wasn't their reality she could tell Sam about the deposits of naqahdah that had been found on Mars and recently on one of Jupiter's moons. “But maybe you could tell us how to enhance our nukes with it, its not something we've ever thought of...”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded, “we could do that, but...”

“Isn't there something more peaceful we want?” Willow asked the question that she knew Sam wanted to ask, “quite frankly...no...” she replied sadly, “...our tech is way ahead of yours and...”

“Ring transporters!” Sam cried out, “How about ring transporters?”

“Okay, I'll totally bite...” Willow rested back in her chair as she listened to Sam explain all about ring transporters, when Sam had finished her explanation, Willow was sitting on the edge of her seat, “we'll take as many as you can give us and in return we'll give you a complete FTL drive and not just the blue prints and data crystals...”

“You don't have, transporter technology?” Sam asked relieved that at last she'd discovered something these infuriatingly advanced Alliance people hadn't already got.

“No!” Willow shook her head, “A few years ago there were some experiments to see if you could 'beam' a nuke into a Shedu base, but it never worked out...well.. no one knew for sure because the entire test sight went up in a big mushroom cloud...BOOM!” 

“It isn't quite like on Star Trek,” Sam explained.

“Don't care, what's Star Trek?” Willow replied pretending she'd never heard of the TV show, “Whatever, we want them...now,” she grinned, “but now I'd like to buy you dinner if I had some money and was allowed off your base.”

“We have a good dinning facility on base,” Sam explained with a smile.

“Good!” Willow got up eagerly, “Do they sell alcohol, coz my plan was to get you totally drunk and then take you back to my place...if I had a place, you know I'm feeling, like, totally attracted to you right now?”

“Sorry...” Sam began to apologise for not feeling the same way about Willow.

“But you're not into girls,” Willow replied sadly, “have you ever tried it?”

“No...”

“Safest sex a woman can have,” Willow continued hopefully, “absolutely no chance of unwanted pregnancy, minimal chance of contracting any SDTs...plus another girl knows exactly which buttons to push...”

“Sorry, but...” 

“Oh well,” Willow sighed sadly, “but...”

“No!” Sam said firmly, “Look I'm sorry...” she didn't really know why she was apologising, “...but I've never felt attracted in a sexual way to another woman...”

“Pity...” Willow sighed again, “...y'know I feel totally sorry for you.”

“What about?” Sam asked, “Not knowing the love of a woman?”

“No...well, that as well but,” Willow looked at Sam earnestly, “y'know if you were in Star Force you'd have been in command of a starship years ago, by now you could have been an admiral or something...”

“I've noticed you're all young for your ranks,” Sam pointed out.

“It's the war,” Willow replied with a shrug, “but...look I'd think you'd do really well in Fleet Exploration Branch...you know? Exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations and then nuking them from orbit...like they say, it's the only way to be sure.”

“Nuking them from orbit?” Sam replied in horror.

“Yeah I know, I totally used to think just what you're thinking now,” Willow explained, “I used to think, 'how terrible' blowing people up just because they're totally demons, but then I've seen a lot of stuff that's changed my mind. Its like a universal constant, all aliens seem to want to do is have sex with human women and most demons aren't physically compatible so there's little chance of a long and rewarding sex life or even life at all.”

“There's not?” this hadn't been Sam's experience, in fact there had been a couple of aliens who'd wanted to have a more than professional relationships with her, but only in the nicest way.

“Uh-huh, totally,” Willow nodded before giving it one last try to get Sam to go to bed with her, “so there's no chance of you and me...?”

“None,” Sam replied firmly.

“Darn!”

0=0=0=0

**Sergeant-Major Summers and Mr Harris.**

Watching Dawn and Xander out of the corner of his eye, Jack signed for the hire car that had just been delivered to the motel where they were staying. The journey to Santa Barbara had been something of a disaster. Although they'd started out from Cheyenne Mountain, at about seven-thirty the previous morning, once they'd reached the Air Force Academy it seemed like all the fates were conspiring to slow them down. Every time there was a delay that Sergeant-Majorette...Jack just didn't see the pretty young woman as a sergeant-major, all the sergeant-majors he'd seen were gruff older guys. Anyway every time there was a delay she'd pull out her fancy pocket computer thing, tut and make comments about the poor organisational skills of primitive planets. To make matters worse the Xander guy would smirk and make some comment to the Summers woman under his breath.

They'd arrived at Santa Barbara airport in the late afternoon or early evening. The Airforce had supplied a C-130 which had completely horrified Summers. She kept asking if it was safe and how a Hydra Shuttle would have got them to their destination in minutes and have been way more comfortable. The toilet facilities aboard the troop transport had, once again, horrified Summers and once again she started to make comments to Harris or possibly her computer.

On arrival at the airport they'd taken a taxi to a good quality motel. On the journey both Summers and Harris had been unusually quiet. They spent the entire journey looking out the windows and occasionally making quiet comments to each other that Jack totally failed to catch. On reaching the motel on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, Jack had booked them in to the accompaniment of Summers saying that perhaps it might be a good idea for 'you Earthers' to look into the possibility of using cleaner fuels. Summers insisted on Harris and herself sharing a room and for a moment Jack wondered if there was something going on between the two younger people. But then he looked at Summers again and decided that if Harris tried anything on with her she'd cut his balls off, perhaps they were just friends, maybe they were both gay!?

0=0=0=0

“What do you think?” Xander asked as he unpacked his small travel bag.

“Its like totally familiar but not at the same time,” Dawn replied as she put her washing kit in the bathroom.

“Yeah I get that too,” Xander replied as he sat down on the edge of his bed, “the place looks more 'Spanish' than good old Sunnyhell.”

“Yeah,” Dawn came and sat down next to Xander but kept a good six inches away from him, “you up for a stroll around town later?”

“Looking for vamps?”

“Something like that,” Dawn admitted.

“And if we meet any...?”

“Don't worry,” Dawn smiled as she pulled her own travel bag over to her and placed it on her lap, “I have my own super-secret-agent-ray-gun!”

“You do?” Xander watched as Dawn opened a secret compartment in her bag and pulled out a smaller version of the phaser that the Moosrab used, “Coool! How did you get that passed air force security?”

“Their primitive scanning devices stood no chance of detecting it,” Dawn said as she checked the weapons power cell was full, “Y'know I just can't believe I just said that...”

“Said what?”

“The thing about primitive scanning devices.”

“Yeah I know what you mean, but Dawn, you've been in the future for over ten years you're bound to think like that.”

“Yeah but...” Dawn sighed heavily, “...it makes me think that I'll never be able to go home...”

“And there's a certain green officer you've got the hots for,” Xander quipped.

“Yeah there is that,” Dawn admitted with a wistful smile.

“So what's the plan, soldier Dawn?” Xander asked.

“That's Marine Dawn,” Dawn replied pointedly, “Okay, we wait for dark, sneak out the bathroom window and head for the nearest cemetery.”

“There's one not far from here if things are the same as Sunny'D',” Xander pointed out.

“Good,” Dawn stood up and started to take off the t-shirt she'd been wearing.

“Erm...Dawn...” Xander said trying not to look at the braless and now t-shirtless Dawn Summers.

“What?” Dawn asked as she started to search her bag for something more 'tactical' to wear, “Oh!” Dawn seemed to realise she wasn't in the Marine arming room aboard the Reluctant, “Sorry...” she quickly slipped on a black t-shirt, “...but I feel so comfortable with you, you're just like one of the girls.”

“Story of my life,” Xander muttered under his breath.

0=0=0=0

After Jack had washed up and changed he'd left his room and made contact with the Air Force security team that was shadowing him and the aliens. They'd watched as Harris and Summers had sneaked out of the bathroom window like a couple of teenagers breaking curfew. At least Summers had sneaked, Harris had sort of fallen out of the window and then stumbled over a couple of trash cans and their accompanying raccoons. This had precipitated a hissed stream of invective from Summers and Jack suddenly realised that she was in fact like every other Sergeant-Major he'd ever known.

Following the two aliens, Jack and his team were surprised when they went to the nearest graveyard and sat down on an old tomb and waited. What the aliens were waiting for, Jack simply couldn't imagine. But, whatever it was it didn't arrive so at just after one o'clock Harris and Summers got up and walked back to the motel. Where once again Summers stealthily entered their room while Harris fell over things in the dark. It must have been the lack of depth perception due to Harris only having one eye, Jack told himself charitably.

0=0=0=0

“Well that was a bust,” Xander announced as he sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his shin.

“Well, maybe, maybe not,” Dawn replied as she bent down to examine Xander's leg, “You'll live,” she announced before flopping down on the bed next to her old friend, this time she sat down almost touching him.

“Uh-huh,” Xander replied waiting for Dawn to expand on what she'd said, he also felt the warmth of her body next to his and started to feel himself become aroused; it had been ages since he'd had any physical contact with a woman; in fact the last time was on Novalba where he'd been used as a breeding machine and that didn't really count.

“Like we might have proved there's no vamps in Santa Barbara,” Dawn pointed out, “Y'know before we came here I did some research...”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” Dawn nodded, “you know on average there's only one murder a year in Santa Barbara...one year they had two but the year after they had none so it sorta averages out.”

“So you're thinking no vamps?”

“I'm beginning to think no nothings,” Dawn explained.

“So what do we do tomorrow?”

“Look for a hellmouth.”

“How?”

“Willow gave me a Hellmouth detector,” Dawn grinned as she produced a jewelled pendent from the pocket of her jeans.

“A hellmouth detector?” Xander replied disbelievingly.

“Totally,” Dawn held the gaudy piece of jewellery in her hand, “Willow made it, its a sort of mix of tech and magic the SGC guys just thought it was a tacky piece of jewellery. All we need to do is drive around and if there's a hellmouth, this baby'll find it.”

“Cool,” Xander winced as he looked at the tawdry, shiny, glittery thing, “but that's for tomorrow, but now I wanna go to bed.”

“Bed...” Dawn looked at the two beds, and thought what a pity it would be to mess both of them up, no doubt there was some oppressed, Latino maid who'd have to make them in the morning; these people didn't even have self-making beds!

“Yeah bed,” Xander frowned, “what's up Dawnie?”

“Well...like...” Dawn sighed, the last time she'd had sex was with the comfort girl back on Starbase Seventeen and that was like a business transaction; plus it might be ages before herself and Captain Victoria got to the really interesting part of a new relationship, so... “Erm, Xander...” it was no use just sitting here beating around the bush, she'd just come out and say it, “...erm...would you like to have sex with me?” Dawn saw the horrified look on Xander's face, “Hey! I'm not that ugly,”she cried, “and look I've never had sex with a guy before,” she started to babble, “I mean I never got much passed first base before Buffy staked my boyfriend...”

“He was a vampire,” Xander pointed out.

“Yeah, whatever...I mean pots and kettles right?”

“Yeah right,” Xander frowned unsure what Dawn was talking about.

“I've always had a crush on you Xan,” Dawn said hopefully, “and I always had the feeling that you totally liked me...”

“I'm sorry Dawn but I can't.”

“What do you mean you can't?” Dawn demanded.

“It'd be like doing it with my little sister,” Xander explained uncomfortably.

“Incest!” Dawn laughed, “That's okay...y'know the game all the family can play!”

“DAWN!”

“Sorry,” Dawn cast down her eyes and didn't look at Xander for a moment, “Marine humour,” she explained, “If that's what's worrying you you can say I forced you to do it a phaser point...or...you don't have to mention it to anyone...don't ask, don’t tell...”

0=0=0=0

The next morning when Jack met up with Summers and Harris they both had silly grins on their faces and kept messing around like a couple of teenagers. Jack wondered if they’d had sex the previous night. Whatever, he told himself they were both consenting adults (although they weren't acting much like it now) and who knew what their customs were about sex and relationships although weren't all the women supposed to be lesbians?

“Okay, kids,” Jack asked as he sipped his coffee, “where do you wanna go today?”

“1630 Revello Drive!” Dawn and Xander chorused.

0=0=0=0


	14. Chapter 14

**Dawn, Xander and Jack, Santa Barbara.**

They'd parked the hire car a little down the street from 1630 Revello Drive. While Dawn and Xander sat in the back, Jack sat in the front with a slightly bored expression on his face. There was something really screwy going on here, he could feel it in his bones, but he had no idea what it was, eventually he broke the silence that had fallen over the car's interior.

“I don't want to rush you or anything, but how long are we gonna stay here?”

“Not long, I hope,” Dawn replied, “I mean its Tuesday they should be going to school some time soon.”

“School?” Jack was about to add something when the door to 1630 opened and a pretty blonde haired teenage girl stepped out onto the porch.

“Buffy!” Dawn gasped in surprise.

“Hey,” Xander added, “she doesn't look more than sixteen or so, in fact she looks almost exactly like she did when I first saw her...”

“What's goin'...” Jack was about to demand an explanation but didn't get the chance because another blonde teenage girl had appeared from the house.

“Who the feck is that?” Dawn wanted to know; the second girl looked like a slightly younger version of Buffy.

“A sister you never had?” Xander suggested.

“Or one of Buffy's friends?” Dawn said quietly.

“No look,” this was from Xander, “that's a sister, you can see the family resemblance.”

“Oh my goddess, I was never born!” Dawn exclaimed.

“No,” Xander pointed, “that's you...”

Looking back towards the house Dawn saw her twelve year old self step out onto the porch and say something to her two older sisters who were by now standing on the garden path looking back at the house.

“Oh...my...goddess!” Dawn repeated as she stared at herself, “Don't I look dorky!”

“Hey look you're twelve, I remember you then,” Xander tried to make Dawn feel good about her younger herself...and failed.

“Mom!” Dawn had to stop herself from getting out of the car and running over to hug her mother.

“And even more sisters,” Xander pointed out.

Wiping at the tears that had come unexpectedly to her eyes, Dawn saw her mother standing on porch flanked by to little girls of about ten and eight. These children looked more like Dawn having darker hair than their blonde sisters. Lastly a man came out of the house, he kissed Joyce on the cheek and called to Buffy and the other girl, who appeared to be called Joan, to say he'd drive them to school.

“Dad!?” Dawn was once again close to tears.

“Looks like your mom and dad never split up,” Xander filled in the blanks, “and had a much bigger family.”

“Yeah...” Dawn agreed as she wiped at her eyes, “...I wish...” Dawn paused and took a deep breath, “...no...they're not my family,” she looked into Xander's eye, “this isn't our world, do you want to go 'round to your place, see if...”

“Things are better?” Xander finished Dawn's sentence for her.

“Yeah, something like that,” Dawn agreed.

“Okay,” Jack turned around in his seat so he could look at Dawn and Xander, “what the hell's going on here?”

“I'll explain, Colonel,” Dawn said, once again the military professional, “but first we've got to check on a couple of other things.”

“Will this explanation explain why your unit badge says _Terran_ Alliance Marine Corps?”

“Erm...you noticed that?” Dawn asked.

“Damn right I did.”

“Yes it will,” Dawn nodded, “now can we go?”

The car pulled away from the curb and on down the street, Dawn turned her head so she could keep the happy Summers family in view for as long as possible. Putting his arm around Dawn's shoulder Xander gave her a supportive hug as he wondered what he'd find when they got to his house.

0=0=0=0

They arrived at Xander's house just as a young, teenage, Xander was leaving the front door.

“Bye Mom!” they heard the younger Xander call, but before he could shut the door behind him a woman, Dawn recognised as Xander's mom, appeared and forced a lunch bag into his hand.

“You forgot you lunch,” the woman said.

“Thanks, mom!” young Xander took the bag and waved as he ran on down the garden path to where a younger Willow waited for him.

The two teens waved again at Mrs Harris before walking off down the street hand in hand.

“Look,” Dawn pointed to the pick-up truck in the Harris' drive, on the door there was a sign that said, 'Harris and Son Construction'.

“Well that just proves it,” Xander sighed.

“That this isn't our past?” Dawn asked.

“No,” Xander shook his head sadly, “that my life truly sucked...hey I wonder if this me and Willow knows the here and now Buffy?”

“Nah,” Dawn shook her head and smiled, “that's pushing it even for 'Happy-world', she's probably bestest buds with Cordelia, by sister always had a very strong 'cheerleader gene'. They're bound to be friends.”

“Okay people where next,” Jack asked as he turned to see the happy-sad faces of his passengers.

“One more stop and I'll give you that explanation, Colonel, I promise,” Dawn said as she gave Jack directions to what she'd known as 'Sunnydale High'.

0=0=0=0

Jack, Dawn and Xander sat in silence at a table in the 'Expresso Pump' while the waitress placed their order on the table. They'd been to 'Sunnydale High' only it'd not been called that, it had been called Charles Finley High School, although it looked exactly like the old Sunnydale High had. It even had its own version of Principal Snyder who wasn't much different from the Snyder who'd been eaten by the Mayor. Another big shock was seeing Faith, hanging out with a load of Senior girls. What was she was doing in Santa Barbara, Dawn and Xander just couldn't work it out, she was supposed to be in Boston.

Finding no trace of a hellmouth or any other demonic activity, Dawn had eventually decided that this was not the past of their own reality. General Kennedy had given her a certain amount of latitude in what she could or couldn't tell Jack O'Neill once she was sure that this wasn't their home reality; she'd decided to tell him as much as she understood herself. No doubt Willow would do a better job of it, but, she'd do the best she could. After all, O'Neill deserved an explanation and she liked him even if he was a male.

“Okay, Colonel,” Dawn began when the waitress was safely out of ear shot, “from my perspective about thirteen-hundred years ago I was brought up in Santa Barbara only in my reality it was called Sunnydale...”

“Sheesh!” Jack buried his face in his hands before looking up again at Dawn, “I hope y'not goin' to talk about time travel and alternate realities...you are aren’t you?”

“Kinda,” Dawn confessed.

“I hate it when Carter does that,” Jack admitted, “anyway I know about time travel and different realities so you can skip that part of the explanation.”

“Thanks,” Dawn said with a relied sigh, “you see we had to make sure that the here and now wasn't our past so we didn't change our own pasts and stop existing...”

“Yeah I got ya,” Jack nodded, “so this isn't your past?”

“No way!” Dawn laughed, “This reality is _waaay_ too nice to be our past,” she gestured to include Xander, “if you want the General said I could tell you about it.”

“Go on,” Jack said as he picked up his coffee.

While Dawn explained to Jack about their lives in Sunnydale and a little of the history of the last thousand or so years, Xander stayed quiet and watched people, but mainly the pretty girls, as they went about their business. After a while something made him think, weren't there a lot of guys in black suits and dark sunglasses around for such a warm, sunny day?

“Vampires? Slayers?” Jack asked, “Demons, hellmouths...Jeez, an' you kids had to fight them!?”

“All true, Colonel,” Dawn said with a shrug.

“And this First guy?”

“We've been fighting him ever since my sister failed to stop him breaking out into the real world,” Dawn continued.

“And your sister was that cheerleader girl we saw earlier?”

“Hey,” Dawn sprang to her sister's defence, “by the time she fought the First she wasn't so much of the cheerleader-air-head-Socal-girl and she was older than the Buffy we saw here...things seem to have happened later here than they did in our time, like this is two-thousand-and-one, right?”

“Right,” Jack nodded as unnoticed by anyone but Xander several black suited men moved in on their table.

“Well, in my reality what we saw was Buffy from nineteen-ninety-seven...”

“About four years out,” Jack mused.

“Hey guys,” Xander called out softly, “is there some weird religious cult around here who all wear dark glasses and black suits because...”

At this point both Dawn and Jack noticed the black suited men moving towards their table.

“Hey...” Jack said as he reached for the automatic under his jacket and hoped that his security detail were taking notice.

“Don't anybody move,” a tall man with some sort of advanced energy weapon in his hand announced, “under the powers of the inter...!”

Before the man could finish what he was saying, Dawn had shot him through the table with her phaser. The guy screamed as the beam went right through him, there was a puff of smoke and steam as his blood boiled and his clothes burst into flame. He fell over backwards knocking chairs and tables flying as the other black-suits drew their weapons and dived for cover. By this time both Dawn and Jack were up and moving, the high pitched whine of Dawn's phaser was punctuated by the sharp reports of Jack's pistol. The noise of battle only got louder as the black suits returned fire with a selection of Earthly and other worldly weapons.

The locals ran screaming from the scene of the fight as Dawn and Jack picked off their attackers one-by-one. The black-suits appeared to be over-armed for their mission, if that mission was to capture Dawn and Xander. Their weapons blew large holes in walls as they fired wildly at the fast moving targets. The battle turned decisively in Dawn and Jack's favour when the Air Force security team joined in with their own automatic weapons. The black-suits ran for their lives leaving several of their dead and wounded bleeding on the ground of the now wrecked coffee bar.

“Who the feck were they?” Dawn demanded.

“Don't know, NID or someone,” Jack replied as he turned to face the security team's commander, “police up the bodies and stop the Leos from getting too involved, tell 'em its all covered by national security and not to ask questions” he then turned back to Dawn, “lets get outta here.”

“Where's Xander!?” Dawn cried in panic thinking her friend might have been killed, or worse, captured.

“I'm okay,” Xander called as he climbed out from under a table.

“Good,” Jack helped Dawn pull Xander to his feet, “now lets move!”

0=0=0=0

**General Hammond's office, Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain.**

“Alright people,” General Hammond said as he looked up from the long list of technology that the Alliance was willing to hand over to Stargate Command, “this all looks too good to be true, even if only half of the things on this list work it'll be a major boost to us in our fight against the Goa'uld. But,” the general looked at each of the people sitting in front of him, “can we in good conscious take what's being offered?”

“No,” Daniel Jackson said firmly, “no-way...”

“Why's that, Dr Jackson?” General Hammond asked quietly.

“Look...” Daniel paused to gather his thoughts, “...right, this Terran Alliance although it claims to be a representative democracy is really nothing more than an aggressive, military, dictatorship. While the human, or at least the female portion of the human population have a great amount of personal freedom they exterminate any aliens who they then claim are demons and keep their male population locked up in some sort of breeding facilities. We can't even be thinking about accepting the technology they're offering...”

“It is a one-off gift, no strings attached,” General Hammond pointed out.

“You said it yourself, General,” Daniel replied, “it all sounds too good to be true, and things that sound too good to be true usually are.”

“So you vote 'no'?” General Hammond asked.

“Yes,” Daniel nodded, “it would be morally reprehensible for us to accept, I mean even that General Kennedy admits that the Alliances policy of exterminating alien civilisations is, in a lot of cases, mistaken, even if you accept the existence of demons. What did she call it? Nuke 'em from orbit its the only way to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” Hammond wanted to know.

“That they're not demons, don't you think its strange that such a technologically advance society still believes in demons, magic and witches?”

“But Daniel,” Carter said, “we are talking alternate realities here, perhaps in their reality demons, witches and magic really do exist.” 

“Yes,” General Hammond agreed, “I've read about stranger things in your very own after mission reports,” he turned to look at Colonel O'Neill, “you have a point of view, Colonel?”

“I sure do,” Jack leaned forward in his chair, “yeah sure they nuke what they call demons, but aren't we trying to do the exact same thing to the Goa'uld and aren't they often mistaken for demons...?”

“Only by relatively primitive societies,” Daniel pointed out, “the Alliance is a highly advanced society with a well educated population, what we're talking about here is ethnic cleansing clear and simple.”

“Whatever,” Jack sighed, “I had a long talk with that Sergeant-Major Summers girl on our way back to The Mountain and some of the things she told me about what these demons have done would make your hair curl,” he looked at General Hammond's bald head before adding, “perhaps not you, sir. But, anyway the Alliance is a victim too. Look how they've had half their population exterminated. I say if they want to give us all this good stuff, although I'd have preferred to have a few of those big honking space guns. What they're offering is a lot more than we've found in the last three years.”

“So you're saying 'yes'?” General Hammond clarified Jack's position on the matter.

“Make that an extra loud, 'hell-yes', General,” Jack confirmed.

Hammond next turned to Sam Carter.

“Major?”

“I don't know about the morality of the situation, Sir, but the technology they're offering is fantastic. From what I was able to find out, while I was fending off Commander Rosenberg's attempts to seduce me...”

“Say what!?” Jack cried out.

“You must have noticed they're all lesbians, Jack,” Daniel smirked.

“Yeah but...” whatever comment Jack was about to make died on his tongue or he thought better of it.

“As I was saying, sirs,” Sam continued, “some of the technology they're offering we would have been able to build in a few years time. I mean we'd have been able to build a primitive version of those armoured suits their military wear in say ten years time, but they wouldn't be anywhere near as effective as the Alliance suits. The food replicators could be a big step forward in solving world hunger, never mind the space and mass they'd save on a starship. They're offering a brand-new star drive plus the plans to make more, they'll also give us the location of the deposits of naqahdah that are in our own solar system...”

“Naqahdah?” Daniel asked, “In our own system that sounds a little odd, why didn't the Goa'uld find it and mine it.”

“Possibly because some of it is under the surface of one of Jupiter's moons and there were easier deposits to mine,” Sam pointed out.

“So you're saying yes to what the Alliance is offering?” General Hammond wanted to know.

“Yes Sir,” Sam replied, “while I understand Daniel's reservations, I don't think we can morally not accept this technology which will give us a decisive military and technological edge over the Goa'uld and thus help protect the planet and our allies.”

Finally General Hammond turned to Teal'c, “Have you got anything to add Teal'c?”

“Indeed,” Teal'c replied laconically, “the warriors of the Alliance are both skilled and brave and I think that the SGC would be foolish to refuse what the Alliance leaders are offering. As O'Neill says the technology on offer is more and better than anything we've been able to find or trade for since the Stargate Program started. With these new weapons we will be able to fight the Goa'uld on more than equal terms and thus hasten their demise, however...”

“However?” General Hammond looked closely at Teal'c for a moment, “You have something more to say? Come on son spit it out...”

“I cannot help feeling that the Alliance is hiding something about themselves...”

“Like they want to exterminate all other intelligent life in the galaxy,” Daniel muttered.

“Only non-female intelligent life, Daniel,” Carter couldn't help adding.

“Go on, Teal'c,” Hammond silenced Daniel and Carter with a look.

“I spared with their General Kennedy...” Teal'c began but was interrupted by O'Neill.

“Hey! She's got to be sixty at least, what were you thinking 'T'?”

“I tried to refuse,” Teal'c replied straight faced, “but she insisted.”

“I hope you went easy on her,” Carter said ignoring the look General Hammond was giving her.

“There was no need,” Teal'c replied quietly, “it was General Kennedy who won the match...”

“Say what!?” O'Neill exclaimed.

“She beat me two falls to one and she expressed the opinion that she was in fact slowing down in her old age, which was why I was able to best her at one fall,” Teal'c's embarrassment was clear to see.

“I wonder if they're all that strong,” O'Neill asked.

“I can't say I noticed Commander Rosenberg exhibiting any unusual strength,” Carter added.

“This all backs up my point,” Daniel said, “they lie, they can't be trusted...”

“That may well be so, but we...I...still have to decide whether to accept what's on offer here,” for a long moment, General Hammond looked down at the list on his desk, slowly he looked up at his première team. “I'm sorry Doctor Jackson, but I have to look at the bigger picture and consider the safety of Earth,” he announced sombrely, “I'm inclined to agree with Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter and accept everything the Alliance is willing to offer us,” Hammond pressed a button on his intercom and spoke, “Ask General Kennedy to come in please...”

As they waited for the Alliance general to arrive, Jack spoke to Sam in a low voice.

“That cute red-head tried to seduce you?”

“Yes Sir,” a small smile played around Sam's lips.

“You said 'no', right?”

“Of course, Sir,” Carter nodded, as an evil thought came to her mind, “but...”

“But?” Jack asked urgently.

“Well, Sir, like you say, she is cute and I have to admit I was tempted...and its my understanding you shouldn't ask me questions like this any more.”

0=0=0=0


	15. Chapter 15

**Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain.**

It was now the second day after completing her mission to Santa Barbara/Sunnydale and Dawn was waiting in one of the complex's observation rooms for Major Carter to arrive. One of the first things General Kennedy’d had sent through the Stargate from P6F666 were two new power armour suits; Dawn's job was to demonstrate the suits to Major Carter while the entire process was being filmed by technicians up in the observation gallery. While she was doing this, Willow would be up in the big conference room with Daniel Jackson showing him some of the other goodies that the general had sent back through the gate. Xander was around the base somewhere and General Kennedy had gone back through the gate to hurry along the delivery of all the technology that they'd offered the Earthers.

While waiting for Major Carter, Dawn had time to think about the night she'd spent in Xander's bed. Long ago she'd resigned herself to the fact that if she ever wanted any sort of romance in her life it would have to be with another woman. Her first few attempts at a relationship with a woman had been disasters; she'd still been a teenager and she'd never been able to completely commit herself to a relationship. Sex was a big part of the lives of the women of the future and once a girl reached thirteen or fourteen she usually started 'experimenting'. Dawn, on the other hand was sixteen when she'd arrived in the future and had just started to 'experiment' with boys...okay, one boy...and he'd been a vampire.

Even now Dawn still didn't want to 'commit' to a steady relationship, which was why she visited 'comfort girls' when she got any 'shore leave'. Although for the last six months or so she'd been wanting someone special in her life to fill the hole that had suddenly appeared after leaving her adopted home. Perhaps Captain Victoria might fill that hole for her, Dawn found herself thinking about the ‘green-bean’ woman a lot. Whatever, she decided she knew that she wouldn't be spending the rest of her life with Xander Harris. Okay, the sex had been nice and not anywhere near as terrible as she thought it might be, but there was never going to be a life for them together within the Alliance and to be perfectly honest, she did actually prefer girls now.

0=0=0=0

The door to the observation room opened to admit Major Carter; Dawn jumped a little in surprise as she was snapped out of her musings about her sex life and any future relationships she might have with a curtain green skinned alien.

“Good morning Chief,” Major Carter called a friendly greeting.

“Good morning, Major,” Dawn snapped off a military manual, perfect salute, which Carter returned promptly.

Dawn had discovered that not only did she have a bewildering array of titles (the Earthers seemed more comfortable with calling her 'Chief'), but that Alliance military customs were more formal than the here and now USAF. This didn't really surprise her. The Alliance military had its historical roots in the old militarises of the original nation states that had set up the Alliance. For instance, the TAMC drew its traditions from both the British Royal Marines and the American USMC.

“Erm, Major,” Dawn said quietly as she eyed the people up in the gallery, a lot of whom appeared to be men, “Are you sure you want all those guys up there watching?”

“Why?” Carter asked as she looked at the two piles of boxes placed on the floor near a heavy metal table which was the only furniture in the room.

“Well,” Dawn found herself blushing, which was weird she told herself, “you've got to strip down to your skin ma'am and do you really want all those guys to see you nude?”

“Ah, yeah I see what you mean,” one thing going to far off planets had taught Carter was not to be too fussy about how people saw you.

Sure, here at the SGC there were women's changing rooms and so on, out in the field the rules changed, but... But it was obvious to Carter that Chief Summers wasn't comfortable with the idea of men watching her as she undressed.

“Okay,” Carter called as she looked up at the faces in the gallery, “I want as many male personnel replaced with female personnel as possibly....” when on one move she added, “...NOW!” in a sharp voice.

There was a lot of movement up in the observation gallery as male technicians were swapped around with female ones.

“Okay, Major,” Dawn had decided to act like she was checking out the skills of some newbie Marine who'd just rocked up on the Reluctant, “you read the briefing notes?”

“I did, Chief,” Carter replied, “and I wanted to ask you how...”

“Sorry ma'am any questions about the composition of the materials that go into making a suit should be saved for later,” Dawn explained, “my job is to show you how to wear a power armour suit, I believe you have experience with your own planet's vacuum suits?”

“Space suits?” Carter nodded, “Yeah I...”

“Okay,” Dawn stopped Carter before she could explain what experience she'd had, “this,” Dawn gestured to a pile of three boxes, “is the Mk14A2G3 Power Armour suit as worn by the Terran Alliance Marine Corps, other branches of the Alliance military use the Mk14A2G1 as they have less use for the standard Marine grav-pack...”

“Grav-Pack?” Carter asked.

“We won't be using them today,” Dawn explained.

“Why not?”

“Too dangerous to use in a confined space with inexperience personnel, ma'am,” Dawn pointed out before opening all the boxes to reveal the three layers that made up a Terran power armour suit. “Okay, Major...strip!” Dawn was down to her underwear before Carter had got off her boots, “Move it Major, the Shedu are comin'!”

After discarding her underwear Dawn stood dressed only in her green Marine beret, by this time Carter was also nude. Just for a moment, Dawn found herself, quite inappropriately, checking out the Major's figure, she could see why Willow had tried to seduce the Major.

“Okay,” Dawn began, “first we put on the hair net and smear anti-nanite paste on our eyebrows.”

“Why?” Carter asked as she pushed her short blonde hair up under the hair net Dawn had handed her.

“This isn't a fashion choice,” Dawn gestured to her totally hairless body, “the nanites in the body suits eat everything, hair, dead skin, blood, bodily waste...everything! So, unless you want to be totally bald and have the permanently surprised look of the eyebrow-less, you use the hair net and the paste,” she handed Carter the little jar of paste.

“Nanites?” Carter asked as she protected her eyebrows.

“Yeah microscopic beasties that stop the suits having to have bulky plumbing and waste disposal systems...quite honestly its totally icky the first time you need to pee or defecate, but you soon get used to it...”

“I'm starting to be glad I 'went' before I arrived,” Carter observed quietly.

“...and the first time you throw-up in your helmet and the little buggers crawl over your face and into your mouth can totally give you the wig.”

“I'm glad to say I only had a light breakfast, Chief,” Carter joked.

“Yeah, whatever,” Dawn shrugged, “but its better than the alternative.”

“Which is?”

“Being gunned down by a Shedu warrior's assault shotgun, okay, enough with the joking around...”

“This was joking around?”

“...time to make you the Earth's leading expert on power armour.”

After putting on the nanite impregnated skin-tight body suits, Dawn pulled the next layer of suit from its storage box.

“If you're wondering the nanites can't live outside the suit for more than about five minutes or so, so you don't have to worry about them escaping and taking over the world,” Dawn now held up the much more bulky second layer suit. “This is very similar to a vacuum suit, in fact it can be used as such if a proper vacuum suit isn't available,” Dawn sounded like she'd done this lecture a thousand times, which she probably had, “not only is it airtight it's also made of ballistic material, a little like your kevlar only better. It's also nuclear, biological and chemical weapons proof, and contains your food and water supply, your standard med-unit, your comms, and your heating and cooling system.”   
Dawn paused to take a breath.

“We found,” she continued a couple of seconds later, “that the cooling system can react quickly enough to counteract most of the effects of a non-lethal staff blast so the wearer only receives minor burns. The ablative armour we first used against the Jaffa's weapons was not a success as it was almost totally ineffective.”

“Right,” Carter nodded as she stepped into the bulkier suit, it was nice to hear that even these Alliance people screwed up once in a while. 

“Next we have the power harness,” Dawn explained as she took something that looked like parts of a medical brace from the biggest of the boxes, “this fits over the second suit and gives the wearer up to twenty times her normal strength...by the way,” Dawn paused as she showed Carter how to put on the power harness, “the suits are designed to fit a woman from the Alliance while taking into account differences in racial body types. The suits you'll be getting were designed to fit the average height of five-foot-nine-inches of a woman from the northern parts of Terra. The suits can be adjusted to fit someone a little taller or shorter. But, if you want suits for men to wear you'll have to start from scratch...” Dawn grinned conspiratorially at Major Carter, “...looks like you'll be leading the first, all-female, power armour, combat team for a while Major.”

Like all the members of General Kennedy's contact team, Dawn thought that the women of the here and now were totally under the thumb of the men.

“Lastly we have the armour itself, which as you can see comes in sections for an easy fit over the power harness,” once again Dawn became the professional Marine instructor, “Not only does it provide protection for the wearer against most woman-portable weapons it also contains your sensors, active camouflage system, external audio pick-ups and a loud speaker so you can talk to people outside...”

“What's this?” Carter pulled a pistol like weapon from the holster built into the armour on her right thigh, it was connected to the suit by a lanyard-like pipe.

“Careful with that its loaded,” Dawn warned, “That's your hand flamer...”

“Hand flamer?”

“A personal flame thrower for close-in defence,” Dawn pulled her own weapon, “basically you release the safety catch, here,” Dawn showed Carter the location of the safety, “then you point and shoot. It's got a range of about twenty-five yards and a bottle of fuel gives you about twenty, one second shots.”

“Cool,” Carter nodded, neither woman was wearing her helmet yet, “but there doesn't appear to be anywhere to put other weapons and equipment.”

“Everything else goes on an equipment harness, which we've not got here, which fits over the armour along with your grave-pack,” Dawn said, “as for weapons; your P90s are almost as good as out M-TARs. As for heavier weapons you'll have to adapt the weapons you already have, they seem pretty effective against these Jaffa guys,” again Dawn paused as Carter moved around the room getting familiar with the suit.

“This is real easy,” Carter announced, “its like you're wearing a space suit that weighs nothing.”

“Try adjusting you strength control.”

Carter did after Dawn explained how to access all the suit's controls, Carter lifted up the table with no difficulty.

“Hey this is great!” Carter exclaimed as she held the table in one hand at shoulder height, “with these suits the Jaffa won't stand a chance against us!”

“Yeah, but be careful,” Dawn warned, “the highest number of casualties amongst newbies is caused by the feeling of indestructibility you get from wearing a suit first time in combat. Also, it took us over an hour to put this stuff on, with a good armoury crew that can be cut to twenty minutes or so. Power armour isn't something you can put on in a hurry. And there's another thing, you can live inside the new suits for around seventy-two hours or so, after that it starts to get totally smelly and messy even with resupplies of nanites, power and food...” some where a siren started to wail, “...what's that?”

0=0=0=0

“You shouldn't judge us so harshly,” Willow said; she'd been showing Daniel Jackson a hand scanner and had noticed the look of distaste in his eyes, “after all we're only what circumstances made us.”

“Circumstance made you into genocidal killers?” Daniel was barely suppressing the anger he felt at having to work with the women from the Alliance.

“Yes!” Willow was starting to feel more than a little annoyed herself, didn't he know what it was like to be on some monster's breakfast menu? “Have you ever had a vampire try to eat you?” Willow referred to the time Spike had tried to attack her in her dorm room at collage, she'd only survived because of the chip in Spike's head.

“No I haven't,” Daniel snapped back, “suppose you tell me, you don't look particularly eaten!”

“I managed to cast a spell and stop him,” Willow explained altering the story to fit in with her present situation, explaining how she'd been catapulted forward in time wasn't for the here and now.

“This magic of yours seems pretty convenient...”

Willow glanced at the glasses and carafe of water in the centre of the conference table, the glass shattered into a hundred sparkling shards while the water retained its shape now unconstrained by the carafe.

“Neat, huh?” Willow released her hold on the water and let it splash across the table, “Someone better mop that up before it marks the table or someone cuts themselves on the glass.”

“So that's magic?” Daniel wasn't really convinced, “How do I know you weren't using some high tech gadget?”

“There's none so blind as those who totally won't see,” Willow muttered, “you know it's odd, Major Carter is way more open to magic than you are...”

“Stop changing the subject, you, your entire society, your 'Alliance'...” 

Willow didn't like the way Daniel had said 'Alliance', he'd made it sound 'dirty' and she didn't like that.

“...with your high ideals, you're just a bunch of killers!” 

“Killers?” it was Willow's turn to barely hang on to her temper; the Alliance had been good to her; it had taken her in and given her opportunities she would never have had otherwise, yes the Alliance wasn't perfect but it was _waaay_ better than the alternative, “What we do is really no different than you and the Goa'uld.”

“That's different!” Daniel claimed.

“In what way?” Willow asked sweetly, “When you win what are you gonna do with the Goa'uld, huh? Let them continue to take hosts and live out their lives on some nice prison planet somewhere, or maybe you were going to teach them to be nice well behaved Goa'uld?”

Daniel didn't really have an answer to that, in truth he'd not really thought that far into the future, what were they going to do with the Goa'uld after they'd been beaten and they had to be beaten there was no other way. Suddenly he saw the dilemma facing the Alliance, what do you do with intractable foes once you'd beaten them?

“Nuke them from orbit,” Willow smiled as if she was reading his mind, “it's the only way to be sure.”

To Daniel it seemed like the red-headed witch was reading his mind; his need to form a counter argument was cut short by the sound of the complex's emergency sirens going of and the familiar voice coming over the tannoy system.

“Unauthorised off world activation!”

0=0=0=0


	16. Chapter 16

**Stargate Command.**

“What's goin' on?” Willow asked as Daniel Jackson came to join her at the observation window; down below them in the gate room a stable wormhole had formed in the gate.

“This happens all the time,” Daniel began to explain, “at the moment there's several teams off-world I expect one of them is making an unscheduled return or wants to pass a message.”

“Then why are they closing that iris thing?” Willow asked as the iris closed making a sound like an enormous pair of garden sheers.

“Standard procedure,” Daniel explained, “until we receive a signal from the team's IDC they won't open the iris.”

“Tough if they've lost their IDC,” Willow pointed out.

“Better than letting in a Goa'uld assault force,” Daniel pointed out.

“True,” Willow agreed as she looked down at the iris, there was something not quite right, “hey, is that supposed to be happening?”

A small point in the middle of the iris was slowly turning black as thin wisps of smoke drifted away from the gate to be sucked up by the chamber's extractor fans.

“Erm...no,” Daniel admitted, “that's not supposed to be happening. In fact something like this has happened before.”

Daniel was by now heading for the stairs that led down to the control room under the conference room, Willow followed hot on his heels. As she walked she touched the holstered M22 pistol on her hip to confirm that it was where it was supposed to be, they'd been given back their weapons the day before and she had an uncomfortable feeling that she might need it in the not too distant future. By the time Willow and Daniel had got down to the control room and were standing behind the bespectacled sergeant who always seemed to be on duty when something odd happened, the black mark had by now turned into a red glowing one.

“Where's General Hammond?” Daniel asked as he watched the red glowing mark get slowly bigger.

“Washington,” the sergeant replied.

“Colonel O'Neill?” Daniel wanted to know.

“Off duty and off base,” the sergeant spoke once more.

“Major Carter?”

“Oh she's with Dawnie,” Willow replied before the sergeant could answer.

“With Dawnie?” Daniel torn his eyes away from the iris to frown at Willow.

“Sorry,” Willow ducked her head, “I mean Sergeant-Major Summers, Dawnie's teaching her how to put on and use one of our power armour suits...lucky cow...”

“W-what?” Daniel didn't know whether to look at Willow or the gate, “Lucky cow?”

“Yeah,” Willow sulked like a teenager, “she gets to see Sam naked...”

Daniel and Sergeant Harriman, shared a look before going back to watching the increasingly large hot spot on the iris.

“Sergeant,” Daniel said as the centre of the hot spot slowly turned a bright yellow, “you better call Major Carter to the control room and maybe alert the defence teams.”

While Harriman was putting out the call for Major Carter and the defence teams, Daniel explained to Willow what he thought was going on.

“A while back a Goa'uld fired some sort of ray through the worm hole,” he explained as best he could, this wasn't his area of expertise, “he was trying to melt his way into the SGC.”

“I guessing he failed?” Willow asked as the centre of the yellow spot turned suddenly white hot.

“Yeah, it took him hours to raise the temperature this seems to be happening a lot...!” 

Daniel never got to finish what he'd been about to say because a blindingly white beam of energy burnt its way through the iris and hit the concrete wall below the control room. There was a terrific 'BANG!' as smoke, flame and pulverised concrete flew in all directions hitting several people who'd still been in the gate room. At the same time computers overloaded and sparks shot out from control panels, Sergeant Harriman sat slumped over his work station, blood trickling from a head wound.

“DO SOMETHING!” Willow yelled at Daniel, as she pulled the injured sergeant from his seat and laid him down on the floor.

“WHAT!?” Daniel replied helplessly, he wasn't in the chain of command and only had a vague notion of what to do.

Standing up, Willow grabbed for what she hoped was a live microphone and began to talk rapidly into it, she might be a science officer, but she was also and experienced Star Force command officer. The time had come for science-officer-Willow to step down and command-officer-Willow to step up.

“Evacuate the gate room,” Willow called into the microphone her voice echoing through the complex, “Defence teams seal off the corridors outside the gate room...” she turned to look at Daniel, “...are there blast shutters to cover these windows?”

Inside the gate room the beam was getting more and more intense as it blasted lumps of concrete from the wall below the control room. Willow didn't think that any blast shutter could defend them against the beam; she could feel the heat from the gate room through the thick glass of the window, she knew if something wasn't done soon the control room would become untenable. Moments later the blast shutters began to close as Sergeant Harriman pressed a large red button on the control panel as he held a dressing to the wound on his forehead.

Unfortunately, Harriman hadn't been fast enough and before the shutters were even half way closed there was a loud explosion as pieces of super tough, white hot iris flew across the gate room. One section of iris scythed through the air, hit the armoured glass of the control room and shattered it into a thousand, razor sharp, shards that exploded inwards hitting and killing several of the control room staff. By some miracle Willow, Daniel and Harriman only received minor cuts and bruises as they were thrown across the room to land in a tangled heap on the floor at the back of the chamber.

Struggling to free herself from the tangle of arms and legs, Willow got unsteadily to her feet and pulled her pistol and pulled back the slide to load the first round. Looking over to where the blast shutter had jammed and still gave her a view of the stargate, she saw several pieces of iris still hanging from the gate. On the plus side the beam of destructive energy appeared to have stopped. On the not so plus side she saw several of what the Marines called 'flash bombs' bounce through the gate to land on the badly damaged ramp leading up to the worm hole.

“DOWN!” Willow yelled as she followed her own advice and the bombs went off.

0=0=0=0

“Major Carter to the control room,” Sergeant Harriman's voice reached the observation room where Sam and Dawn were still dressed in their armoured suits.

“That sounds urgent, Major,” Dawn said, “no time to get outta the suits we'll have to go as is.”

“We?” Carter asked as she headed for the door.

“You don't think I'm letting that shiny, new and most importantly...expensive...suit outta my sight until you've signed for it do you?”

“Ha!” Carter laughed, “Military bureaucracy's obviously the same whatever reality you happen to come from...”

They reached the door just as the tannoy voice called for defence teams to come to the gate room, moments later there was a tremendous 'BANG!'. 

“That doesn't sound good,” Dawn said as she followed Major Carter along a corridor, she pulled her hand flamer from it holster and checked that it was fueled-up and set the selector 'Fire'. “Hold on, Major...”

Carter came to a halt and turned to face Dawn.

“Helmet on, Ma'am,” Dawn started to secure her own helmet, “and check your hand flamer...”

“Yeah, I think you're right Chief,” Carter let Dawn place her helmet over her head and sealed it shut.

“Is there an armoury close by?” Dawn wanted to know.

“One level down,” Carter replied as she resumed her journey towards the control room.

“Damn,” Dawn called over her suit's comms, “we'll have to make do with just the flamers, Remember you've only got twenty shots.”

“Roger that, Chief,” Carter acknowledged as she came in sight of the first of the defence teams outside the gate room, “how do I talk to someone outside my suit?”

Dawn explained all the time wishing she'd had more time to instruct Major Carter in how to use the workings of the suit. Luckily the suits controls were pretty intuitive so an intelligent woman, like Major Carter, should be able to work it out...assuming she didn't get shot while she was thinking. A lot of training with power armour was to get the wearer to use its systems without thinking. Unfortunately this took time, time that they didn't have.

“Make a hole!” Carter called over her external loudspeakers.

Turning to see the two armoured figures approaching at a fast walk, the defence team opened ranks as they recognised Major Carter's voice.

“What's going on?” Carter asked the senior NCO in command of the team after she'd identified herself.

“Some sort of beam blasted open the iris, Ma'am,” the NCO explained, “then we were ordered to evacuate the gate room.”

“Right,” Carter looked up and down the corridor, “take up position at that junction,” she pointed back the way she'd just come from, “Shoot anything you don't recognise when it comes through that door,” she pointed to the door leading to the gate room, “now, MOVE IT!”

Once the defence team was safely out of the way, Sam walked over to the door to the gate room and stopped.

“Damn!” she said, “I left my card key back in the observation room.”

“Two things, Major,” Dawn stepped forward, “let me go first and second, we're wearing powered armour, no door will stop us for long,” as she said this Dawn punched the door in its middle and bent it out of shape. 

Hitting it again the door buckled and a gap appeared between the door frame and the door, into which Dawn inserted her hands. Heaving on the bent and buckled door she opened it just as several 'flash bombs' exploded in the gate room. There was the familiar sensation of mild confusion as her face plate blacked out for five or six seconds and her comms faded for about the same amount of time. By now, Dawn was used to the effects of the Goa'uld weapons and it didn't slow down her destruction of the door by more than a couple of seconds.

After tossing the remains of the door carelessly to one side, Dawn found herself more or less face to face with a couple of Jaffa warriors. They pointed their staff weapons at her and fired. The close range blasts knocked Dawn off her feet as the staff energy heated up her breast plate and her cooling systems frantically tried to reduce the temperature inside her suit. Receiving some painful burns to her chest, Dawn felt the slight pinprick of her medical unit as it injected her with some pain killers. As she staggered against the corridor wall a plume of flame reached out to the Jaffa to send them screaming back into the gate room. 

“Wait!” Dawn called as a blizzard of staff blasts flew through the opened doorway, “Multiple hits will kill you, Major,” Dawn warned, “and remember, you haven't signed for that suit yet!”

“What now?” just at the moment, Carter was open to suggestions; Chief Summers was a combat veteran, she knew the limitations of the powered suits so Sam was willing to let her take the lead on this mission.

0=0=0=0

“Golly!” Willow slowly climbed back to her feet as she gradually recovered from the effects of the 'flash bombs', turning at the sound of a noise behind her she saw Daniel get hesitantly to his feet, “Daniel! Get these people outta here...NOW!” 

“What are you going to do?” Daniel asked a he started to help injured technicians towards an emergency exit.

“What any good Star Force officer would,” much to her surprise, Willow found herself grinning, “make their fecking eyes water!”

Lifting her pistol into a two handed firing position, Willow was just in time to put two rounds into the face of a Jaffa as he came up the stairs into the ruined control room. The Jaffa fell over backwards as the heavy rounds smashed his head to pulp. Firearms gave Willow an alternative to using magic and over the years she'd become a pretty good shot.

“Time to move,” she told herself; a moving target was harder to find and shoot at than a stationary one, after her small victory it was time to move on.

0=0=0=0

Having retreated down the corridor, Dawn and Sam took up ambush positions at the junction where the defence team had taken up position, they were now taking cover behind Dawn and Sam. Listening to her external pick-ups, Dawn heard the measured tread of Jaffa boots as they made their way down the corridor. Once again Dawn tutted in disgust at the Jaffa's almost total disregard of even basic combat tactics. 

As the first Jaffa drew level with her hiding place, Dawn shot him with a half second burst from her hand flamer. Smoky flame engulfed the lead Jaffa as he screamed and clawed at his burning flesh. Stepping out into the corridor both Dawn and Sam sent pulses of flame down the corridor to incinerate the Jaffa who were only just beginning to realise that this attack would be no walk over. They were facing people with better weapons, better armour and far superior equipment not the usual rabble of terrified locals armed with bows, arrows and swords. The defence team following Dawn and Sam mopped up the last few un-burnt Jaffa as the little force of humans advanced towards the gate room once again. 

“What now?” Sam asked.

“ATTACK!” Dawn replied with a blood thirsty yell.

0=0=0=0

There was an awful lot of screaming and firing coming from the direction of the gate room, but Willow ignored most of that as she had problems of her own. Making her way up into the now wrecked conference room, she'd come face to face with a big arrogant looking Goa'uld bastard dressed in gold coloured armour.

“Out of my way, a mere human cannot stop a god!” the 'big bastard' said in that really weird echoey voice that all the Goa'uld seemed to use.

“You think you're a god?” Willow asked as she pointed her pistol at the 'god's' head, “Coz I'm a god slayer!” Saying this she emptied her magazine in the direction of the god and watched as her bullets bounced off his force shield, “Oops!” she said as the god raised his hand and Willow dived for the cover of the overturned conference table.

The force beam, or whatever the Goa'uld was using demolished a couple of chairs and a small cupboard. While in the cover of the table, Willow swapped out her magazines as the report Xander had written about Goa'uld force fields came back to her mind. To penetrate them you needed something going relatively slowly.

“Cool,” Willow whispered to herself, “I can do slow...”

Popping up from behind the table like some deadly Jack-in-the-Box, Willow made a gesture that hurled the Goa'uld across the room and held him frozen against the wall. A good witch didn't need technology when she had magic...and Willow was a _really_ 'good' witch.

“God huh?” Willow smiled as she walked slowly towards the struggling Goa'uld, “Met Willow the Red, mega-powerful witch and god slayer. Tremble before me insignificant creature for I am the right hand of the Goddess and the last living thing you will ever see!”

By now Willow was only a couple of yards from were the Goa'uld stood trapped like a butterfly pinned to a display board, he stared at her with terrified eyes. Raising her pistol she fired once. The bullet sped from the barrel of her weapon only to slow to a crawl as it neared the force field. Passing easily through the Goa'uld's defences, the bullet continued on its leisurely path now driven only by the force of Willow's magic. The bullet punched through the Goa'uld's physical armour and inexorably on into the creature's flesh, the Goa'uld cried out in pain and fear as the bullet made its slow progress towards his heart.

“Normally,” Willow began to explain, “bullets go a heck of a lot faster than this, but, I wanted you to experience the pain of being shot, coz normally its all over pretty quickly, see?”

The Goa'uld cried out as the bullet bored on through its host's body, it had never experienced such pain in all its many lives.

“I bet you're really regretting getting up this morning,” Willow stepped closer to watch the pain on the Goa'uld's face, “I wonder if you're starting to regret all the terrible things you've done over however centuries you've been alive?” she paused for a moment before saying, “Bored now!” Willow drove the bullet through the Goa'uld's heart and watched the light fade from its eyes with a faint smile on her lips, “Mere human, huh?” Willow laughed quietly as she released the dead Goa'uld from her magical grasp and let it slide to the floor, “Mere god don't-cha-mean?”

0=0=0=0


	17. Chapter 17

**The Epilogue**

**Xander.**

The sound of all the hammering and sawing made Xander's hands itch, he wanted to pick up some tools and help the Air Force guys as they made temporary repairs to Stargate Command. The Goa'uld attack had been completely routed, mostly by the efforts of Dawn and Major Carter. Plus Willow had killed the faux god Apophis, she hadn't given many details about how she'd achieved this feat, she'd only said that she'd shot him in the heart and then stamped on the symbiont as it crawled from its dead host.

Moving between the work crews Xander arrived at General Hammond's door, he paused for a moment to once more run through what he was going to say. Satisfied that he'd got the wording right in his head he lifted his hand and knocked.

“Come,” came the sound of the General's voice from inside the office.

Stepping into the office, Xander closed the door behind him, taking a moment to look around he noticed that the general's office had escaped the worst of the battle damage, there being only a couple of burn marks on the walls caused by stray staff blasts. General Hammond sat in his accustomed place behind his desk, he looked up from the report he was typing on his Laptop computer before closing the top, obviously it was a secret report probably about the attack on the SGC.

“Mr Harris,” the general smiled, “what can I do for you?”

“You could get me some tools so I can help out,” Xander half joked.

“That's kind of you to offer,” replied Hammond with a fatherly smile, “but won't you be heading back to your own reality soon?”

“That's what I'd like to talk to you about,” Xander gestured to a visitor's chair and Hammond nodded, sitting down he took a deep breath, “I wanna stay here, I guess I'm asking for...what do you call it... asylum?”

“That's right,” General Hammond clasped his hands in front of him and leaned slightly towards Xander, “now why do you want to stay in this reality?”

“There's nothing for me back in the Alliance,” Xander explained, “its not my home, I've no family there and no future and...” he grinned, “...there's not much call for carpenters on starships. I gotta say I don't know anything useful...where I came from the technology is about what it is here,” this was no more than the truth, “so I won't be able to help you beat these Goa'uld,” again he grinned before gesturing to his eye-patch, “I wouldn't even be able to enlist.”

“Okay, son,” General Hammond said slowly, “if you did stay on Earth, where would you go and what would you do?”

“I kinda thought I'd like to live in that Santa Barbara place,” Xander explained it was like Sunnydale but much...much better, “and as for what I'd do...well,” he shrugged, “like I say I'm a carpenter and I think there just might be someone in Santa Barbara who 'd give me a job...”

0=0=0=0

**Dawn.**

Sitting in the shuttle with a rather smug and sexually satisfied smile on her face, Dawn sighed to herself. Having spent a pretty interesting night aboard the Confederation Star Ship Stephanie (the Moosrab troop transport attached to Task Force 69), Dawn could now answer the burning question being asked by every Marine aboard the Reluctant; Moosrab women were in fact green all over, she'd checked most thoroughly.

Having spent the night in Captain Victoria's bed, Dawn was now wondering how they could make their relationship work out. Long range relationships were hard enough where only miles were concerned, but light years...that was a different matter all together. Look at what had happened to Faith, her wife had 'Dear Jane-ed' her a couple of years ago because she was never on Earth for more than a couple of months a year. The woman (Dawn couldn't even remember her name now) had taken their kids and gone to live in Australia...or was it Austria? Whatever, Faith's marriage was a cautionary tale that couldn't be ignored.

While the CSS Stephanie was part of the task force it wouldn't be too hard for Dawn to hop a shuttle and go visiting. But what would happen when the task force broke up? Would their relationship survive? Did she want the relationship to grow into something more permanent. Dawn supposed the question she was really asking was, 'was she ready to leave the Marines and go live on one of the Confederation’s human worlds with her green lover?' Well, she'd have to think about that. Did she really love Victoria or was this simply infatuation? Eventually she'd find out and make a decision, after all she probably had a couple of years to make up her mind.

The shuttle docked with a soft 'thump' which was then accompanied by all the usual hissing and clanking and whirring sounds of the docking procedure. After a couple of minutes the load-mistress nodded to Dawn to say that it was safe to disembark. Getting up Dawn made her way over to the main hatch and stepped out onto the Reluctant's flight deck. The first person she saw was Lieutenant Miller waiting for her over by one of the hatches that lead to the rest of the ship.

“Hi, Eel-Tee,” Dawn called happily, the effects of her night of passion wouldn't wear off for several more hours and she was feeling at one with the universe.

“Good morning Chief,” Miller replied; Dawn noted that her officer looked genuinely pleased to see her, “I wonder if you wouldn't mind coming to my cabin, I need to talk to you...”

0=0=0=0

**Lt Miller, TAMC.**

Waiting for the return of her First Prime, Dawn Summers, Kif, now known as Lt Miller, TAMC, tried to remind herself that she shouldn't use terms like 'First Prime' any more. The correct term for the woman Kif still thought of as her First Prime was Sergeant Major Summers. Miller reflected that the humans had a bewildering number of names for what was basically the same rank; she decided then and there that she would try to stick with either Sergeant-Major or Chief, but definitely _not_ First Prime.

The reason why Miller was feeling so confused and detracted was that she was in love. At least that was what she thought the emotions she was feeling were. The object of her desire was of course Nurse Gloria Monday. While they were parted she couldn't wait to be with her again, when she was with Gloria nothing else in the entire universe seemed to mater. It was all very distracting, and might well put a crimp on her plans for galactic domination, but the mere idea of not seeing Gloria again put Miller into a deep melancholy.

Having never really felt human emotions before, Miller didn't know what to do; so, she'd thrown herself into work, studying all she could about the Alliance military, its history and technology. This helped her distract herself from her thoughts of Gloria Monday for a while. But after a few hours even descriptions of the most bloody battles failed to keep visions of her lover from her mind...perhaps drugs might help?

Hoping that her First Prime, or more correctly Chief Summers, could distract her, Miller looked up eagerly as the klaxon went off to warn that a shuttle would be docking in the next few moments. Sure enough the shuttle with Chief Summers aboard flew through the force field that kept the docking bay pressurised, even in the vacuum of space, and landed. A few moments later the shuttle's main hatch opened and Chief Summers walked out into the docking bay. Seeing her officer she walked over and saluted smartly.

“Hi, Eel-Tee,” Dawn said happily.

“Good morning Chief,” Miller replied, “I wonder if you wouldn't mind coming to my cabin, I need to talk to you...”

“What about, Ma'am?” Dawn asked as she walked beside Miz Miller towards the hatch that lead to the rest of the ship.

“I want your help Chief,” Miller explained in a low voice, “I know I've not been the best Marine in the universe...I want you to help me be the best darn Tammy I can be!”

“Sure thing, Eel-Tee,” maybe, Dawn told herself, maybe Miz Miller would be a good officer after all, “not a problem Ma'am!”

Kif/Miller sighed a small sigh of relief, she had just starting on her journey to become a war-hero which would end with her being the Master or in her present form, 'Mistress' of the Universe!

0=0=0=0

**Willow and Faith.**

“You're late,” Willow called as Faith entered her quarters.

“Yo..." Faith sighed, “...had ta oversee the transfer of those Jaffa P-O-W's to the SGC,” she explained, “otherwise the Moosrab woulda shot 'em. How ya feelin', Red, y'know with the magics?” Faith asked as the two women sat down together in Willow's cabin.

“It's times like this I really miss Kennedy,” Willow replied with a tired voice, using the powerful magics had taken its toll of her both physically and mentally, “that's like my Kennedy from way back...”

Faith nodded her understanding.

“..she was my kite string, y'know, she totally kept me grounded so the magics wouldn't take me away,” Willow sighed heavily.

“Sounds like ya handled it though,” Faith said, “ya didn't go all black eyed and scary.”

“But I enjoyed killing that Goa'uld,” Willow explained miserably.

“From what I hear he needed killin',” Faith replied mater-of-factly.

“Yeah he did,” Willow nodded, “but I shouldn't have enjoyed doing it...y'know I even cackled!”

“Wow!” Faith fought to keep her face straight, “Major danger signals, a witch cacklin'!”

“I don't think you're taking this seriously, Faith,” Willow sulked.

“Look,” Faith took a deep breath, “look on the plus side...there's one less black hat in the universe an' yur beatin' y'self up about it so ya can't be turning evil.”

“Hey y'right,” Willow brightened up a little, “I've not turned totally evil an' destroy the worldy...but...”

“But...?” Faith asked as she reached for one of Willow's hands and squeezed it affectionately.

“But I could really do with a new kite string,” Willow looked at Faith hopefully.

“Y'want me to be ya...y'know kite string sounds kinda stupid.”

“Anchor?” Willow suggested.

“I can live with that,” Faith nodded.

“But I don't want you to think I want you just for the moral support an'all,” Willow said as she turned towards Faith and looked deeply into her eyes.

“Hey, Lieutenant Commander are ya coming on to me?”

“Yeah,” Willow replied breathlessly.

“Cool,” Faith grinned lasciviously, “just checkin'...”

0=0=0=0

**Xander II.**

“Dad!?”

Xander smiled at the surprised expression on the face of his younger self. After spending a couple of months being 'debriefed' by the USAF, NID, NSA, CIA and a whole alphabet soup of other agencies; eventually they'd all realised that he was in fact telling them the truth when he said he didn't know how any Alliance technology worked. Realising that Xander had nothing to offer other than some very general information about the Alliance, he'd been given a new identity and been allowed to move to Santa Barbara.

“What is it son?”

Xander recognised his father's voice coming from the rear office of Harris Construction...to call it a 'headquarters' would be over stating things, it was in fact a small suit of offices over looking a builder's yard.

“You better come out here...” young Xander couldn't take his eyes off 'old' Xander.

“What's so...” Harris senior appeared out of his office followed by the young version of Willow who was clutching a clip board, obviously Willow worked here at the weekends too, “...I'll be fu...I mean...” Harris senior's voice faded away as his eyes fell on Xander.

“Oh golly!” Willow exclaimed as her eyes went wide before glancing at Harris senior and then at Xander junior.

“Hi,” Xander smiled again, “I hear you're looking for carpenters.”

“Erm...” Harris senior came over to stand next to his son, “...erm...yeah...hey I'm sorry to stare an'all but...”

“Yeah I know,” Xander grinned, “I noticed it too, weird isn't it, I look like I could be your son's older brother.”

“Yeah...” Harris senior held out his hand and shook Xander's, “...something like that...erm...carpenter you say? What experience have you got?”

“I worked in construction for a couple of years, I even headed up the carpentry crew on a couple of jobs. I've also done a lot of work fitting out shops, fitting windows, repairing furniture, stuff like that...”

“Do you mind if I ask how you lost your eye?” Harris senior had almost fully recovered himself although Willow still seemed to be studying Xander pretty closely.

“Nothing job related,” Xander reassured his 'father'.

“You in the service?” his father asked fishing for more information.

“No...” Xander shook his head and decided to tell his 'father' the cover story he'd come up with, “a couple of years back I was somewhere not so nice as Santa Barbara and me an' my friends had to stand up for what was right...”

“Oh yeah I get that,” Harris senior nodded his head, “so, you're looking for work, huh?”

“Yes sir!”

“I might have a spot open,” Harris senior relaxed a little, “why don't you come into my office and talk, coffee?”

“Please.”

“Willow, honey could you...?”

“On it Mr Harris,” Willow tore her eyes away from Xander as she went over and busied herself pouring coffee into a couple of mugs.

A couple of days later, Xander was on his first job for Harris Construction. Young Xander and his father appeared to have accepted the weirdness of a guy that no one had ever heard of and who looked like one of the Harris family turning up in Santa Barbara. Willow on the other hand was watching him like a hawk. This worried Xander a little, the Willow of this reality was just as smart as the Willow he knew and he was worried that she might work out who and what he really was.

Finding himself outside some curious little 'new age' shop, Xander walked on in and found himself in a store that brought memories of the Magic Box flooding back into his mind.

“Can I help you?” a female voice came from his right.

“Yeah I...” Xander turned to see a young, slim, blonde woman looking up at him expectantly, “...I...” he seemed to have lost the power of speech for a moment, he found it again and said, “...Anya? Anya Jenkins?”

0=0=0=0

**P4V853.**

Smiling grimly to herself, Major Carter looked out through the face plate of her suit at all the destruction around her. P4V853 had been an important Goa'uld base for the construction of starships; now it was just a desolate nuclear wasteland. The attack had started with a cruise missile carrying a tactical nuclear warhead which had been fired through the Stargate from the Alpha Site. The missile had taken out the Goa'uld shipyard but when Carter had come through the stargate half an hour latter there were still plenty of Jaffa left alive to 'greet' her.

It had taken the SGC over three months to train up enough women to wear and fight in the suits given to them by the Alliance. The Alliance had eventually found twenty-four spare suits to hand over to the SGC. Eight had gone to Area 51 so that the scientists there could work out how they functioned and eventually build Earth versions of the powered suits. Another four were being kept as spares at the SGC which gave Sam twelve to equip herself and her raiding force. The training needed to use the suits was difficult even with all the training manuals the Alliance had left behind, there had been several near fatal accidents before Sam chose her 'First Eleven' and began training for their first combat mission.

The raid had been a complete success, not only had the ship yards been destroyed, but the Jaffa garrison had been either killed or made prisoner. All this had been achieved at the cost of one dead and two injured, one only lightly. Almost all of the assault force had received light injuries in one way or another, Sam had suffered several burns from staff blasts, but her suit's medical unit was keeping the pain at bay until she could report to Dr Fraser for treatment.

The Jaffa on the other hand had not faired so well, the ground was liberally scattered with Jaffa dead, here and there the Jaffa even lay in piles. As usual the Jaffa's only tactical thought was to attack in waves. The SGC Power Armour Unit had cut them down with high velocity armour piercing bullets and grenades from automatic grenade launchers; then when the Jaffa got too close the deadly hand flamers came into play. Often when the Jaffa looked like overrunning a position the Air Force women had simply used their grav-packs to move rapidly to a new position. The Jaffa simply hadn't stood a chance, they couldn't react fast enough to the SGCPAU's movements and were often caught off balance and waiting to be slaughtered in their hundreds.

0=0=0=0

As for the Alliance people themselves? General Kennedy must have done what she said she was going to do, either moving or destroying the gates in Alliance territory. When the SGC had tried to dial-up P6F666 they'd not got a connection. When they'd tried again about a month later they'd got a connection and sent a MALP through. The robotic device had sent back images of trees, there was no sign of a ruined town or the Alliance. The anomaly that had caused the wormhole to skip to a different reality had obviously vanished as mysteriously as it appeared. Even if it came back, with no stargate on the alternate P6F666 they'd probably never hear from the Alliance again.

Until then Earth would have to fight on against the Goa'uld alone. The technology that the Alliance had given them would help, of course. But it would be several years before they'd got even low-tech versions of what they'd been given. Until then they'd just have to do the best that they could with what they had.

0=0=0=0

**Kennedy.**

Watching the door slide closed behind Amber Singh, Kennedy got up from her desk and walked over to her office’s window. It wasn’t really a window, it was really a large viewscreen. It just looked like a window through which she could watch hyperspace go by in all its multi-coloured glory. Sighing to herself she turned away from the ‘window’ and walked over to the refreshment unit situated next to the conference area of her office. Picking up the bottle of ‘fine Kentucky Whiskey’ that General Hammond had given her, she realised that there was only about one shot left. Pouring the last of the whiskey into a glass she turned once more to stare out her window and think about what she’d done.

Having released the virus and spoken the words of the deceptively simple spell, Kennedy had returned to her own reality claiming pressure of work necessitated her return to the Reluctant. In truth she’d not been able to stay on Earth knowing what she had done. Anyway there were enough people left behind to help spread the virus she’d released.

What she’d done wasn’t generally known about in the Alliance, only military officers and civilian administrators over a certain rank had all the information concerning the ‘virus’ and its accompanying spell. But none of this helped make her feel better about what she’d done, yes she was obeying orders and maybe it was for the greater good, but it still felt wrong.

The only thing about the entire affair that salved her conscious a little was that Xander would probably never notice what had happen. The virus was very slow acting it would take years before anyone noticed how the birthrates had changed, how more and more girls were being born while fewer and fewer boys were coming into the world. It would give the women of Earth time to adapt to reorganise their world and retrain themselves. But in two-hundred years at most, the male birthrate would be down to about one or two percent, leaving just enough males alive to ensure the continued existence of woman-kind on Earth.

Drinking the last of the whiskey in one gulp, Kennedy put down her glass and walked back to her desk. Sitting down she opened another file on her computer and read the page heading. It was a report on the combat effectiveness on the new Moosrab grav-armour that had been issued to replace the combat walkers...taking a deep breath, Kennedy started to read. The document was dry and boring enough to help her forget what she’d done...at least for a while.

The End.

While Kennedy is wrestling with what she’s done, why not sing along with the Band of the US Navy (highlight and right click to follow the link)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8AcsNAyXxM

_United forever in friendship and labour,  
Our mighty Alliance will ever endure.  
The Terran Alliance will live through the ages.  
The dream of her people their fortress secure._

_Long live our Terran motherland,  
Built by the people's mighty hand.  
Long live our people, united and free.  
Strong in our friendship tried by fire.  
Long may our Terran flag inspire,  
Shining in glory for all there to see._


End file.
